


I Mean This, I'm Okay (Trust Me)

by Le_Rouret, sheraiah



Series: Sarasotaverse [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Birthday, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Recovery Bucky Barnes, Psychological Trauma, Retirement, Road Trips, Sokovia Accords, St. Augustine, Steve Rogers Is a Good Bro, Universe Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:45:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11786325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Rouret/pseuds/Le_Rouret, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheraiah/pseuds/sheraiah
Summary: "A year and a half of existence is a year and a half in your wake, and at some point, you need to turn your back on it and keep pressing forward.Steve wasn’t terribly good at this."Eighteen months after moving Bucky down to Sarasota in the wake of the Sokovia Accords and his forced retirement, Steve wants to do something special for Bucky's ninety-eighth birthday. They can't leave the state; they can't get drunk; and strippers are not an option. Steve opts for a road trip to one of the only cities in Florida that's older than they are: St. Augustine.





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

> More goodies from the Sarasotaverse! St. Augustine is one of Sheraiah's and my favorite places in the world, and we wanted to heap double-duty love on that amazing city, and the heart-wrenching bromance that is Steve and Bucky.
> 
> This is a multi-chapter fic in our Sarasota universe, in which we postulate a happier ending for our two favorite super-soldiers. Enjoy!
> 
> Visit Bucky's Tumblr! fkdupsnowman128b.tumblr.com

 

 

            Sometimes, a year and a half can go by as though nothing’s happened.

            The mind recognizes the passage of time. The body goes through the motions of sleep-wake-work. The soul plods along in a state of vaguely resentful accomplishment. Days blur, their beginnings and endings conflating like blackboard chalk smudged by a finger, indistinguishable and colorless. Then, before you know it, you glance at the date in the bottom right corner of your laptop screen and think, “Already? Where did the time go?”

            You are the same. Your friends are the same. You drive the same car, work with the same people, eat the same foods, listen to the same music. Depending on your age and ideas about the afterlife, you are either resigned, panicked, or depressed. A year and a half, after all, is just a chunk of your life artificially cordoned off by mankind’s desire to quantify his state. Time passing is a set of tick-marks measured against the gradient of our existence.

            Sometimes, though, a year and a half is a thorny, stinking hedge of pain and regret and anger that you battle to navigate. It chokes and strangles you, tearing at your psyche and spirit. Every swing of the machete springs back; every inch gained feels like conquering Everest; your muscles and heart scream in protest as you fight, fight, fight to get through it, never knowing what’s on the other side. Every step burns and tears, beats you back, cuts through flesh and bone down to the very core, exhausting, excruciating, interminable weight dragging you down. Then, when the worst is over, you look back over the year and a half that felt like a decade, brush yourself off, and take your first steps uninhibited by restraint or fear. It is an odd feeling, the loss of claustrophobia and desperation, and sometimes you’re not sure what to do with all the freedom.

            Either way, a year and a half of existence is a year and a half in your wake, and at some point, you need to turn your back on it and keep pressing forward.

            Steve wasn’t terribly good at this.

            From the age of four, he had been resigned to living a foreshortened life. Chronic illness and poor health forced him to push as hard as he could to make the most of a diminishing fragment of time, and before Erskine’s serum, a year and a half spent, even struggling, was a triumph.

            During the War, death loomed, imminent and inescapable. After Bucky had slipped through his fingers, the realization of life's tenuousness shook him apart, making the possibility of war's ending and peace's arising insufficient to allow him visualization of his future. And when he’d defrosted and joined SHIELD, the passage of time was irrelevant; his life was measured in mission-debrief-mission-debrief-mission-debrief. He didn’t regret his work; it had been necessary, something to get him up and running again. But it had left no margin for the contemplation of retirement, of free time, of discovering what he wanted.

            Then the Winter Soldier ventured in from the cold, and Steve’s life came to a screeching halt.

            The arrest, the trial, the Sokovia Accords, giving up his shield: For four months, he felt like a tennis ball in a clothes dryer, rolled and spun and bounced and turned so that he wasn’t even sure in what direction time flowed. Minutes were agonizingly long, yet weeks passed in a breath. Shoving Bucky in the car and fleeing to Florida in the middle of the night was nothing more than a defiant and frightened crossing of another damn Rubicon, forcibly leaving his past behind, desperate to figure out how to let the minutes tick by without shedding any blood.

            And so a year and a half passed.

            Not all of it was good. Some moments, he had to admit, were pretty bad. Steve was terrible at psychology, too stubborn to allow a mind’s illogic to run unopposed. Bucky, his Bucky, who had always stood by his side, a rock-solid and reasonable presence, was a mess that Steve didn’t know how to fix, who resisted any efforts to make him normal again. He became angry, or morose, or brittle and sarcastic; he drove too fast and drank too freely and laughed too hard and hid too much. When Steve tried to correct this, and inevitably ran head-first into the stubborn, tangled wall of psychogenic inconsistencies that now made up his best friend, Sam would laugh and call Steve a control freak, and tell him to lighten up and let things be.

            So he tried. He didn't always succeed. Sometimes he failed miserably. But he sincerely tried, and he hoped Bucky knew this.

            And here he was, a year and a half later, sitting in a cozy living room peppered with family portraits and prints of the Holy Land and books in German and Hebrew, chatting with two septuagenarians about how expensive it was to take grandchildren to Disney World these days, and accepting another glass of sweet red wine from his hostess. Looking up at Sabra Fetterman, her plush face wreathed in smiles under starkly dyed black hair, Steve’s mind did a little joyous backflip: A year and a half had passed, and they were on the other side of it, laughing and content.

            His eyes tracked to Bucky – they always tracked to Bucky, it seemed; even after eighteen months, Steve was afraid of Bucky somehow suddenly disappearing – and he smiled over his wine glass. Bucky was sitting cross-legged on the floor between Ellie Allen and Amelie Hayes, in his dilapidated jeans and holey tee shirt looking like a shaggy and unkempt dog guarding his mistresses. He had a beer in one hand and a birthday card in the other, and was laughing at something Jim Allen had said. Some days, Bucky’s grey eyes were haunted and hollow; if he hadn’t slept well, if he’d had nightmares, if some boom of thunder or scream of siren triggered him, he would shrink and crouch, pale, baggy, and the light in his eyes would go out. But tonight, after a rich meal of grilled steak and Ellie’s potato salad and Amelie’s black bean surprise, surrounded by his friends and pumped full of beer and birthday cake, Bucky was about as close to being himself as Steve had seen him since 1944.

            “And then,” laughed Bill from his seat, his prosthetic leg propped up on a tasseled red foot stool, “we got back on the train, and this woman was still fussing about Jim’s cigar smoke – “

            “So rude, too,” sniffed Sabra, refilling Bill’s glass, her glass nazar beads tinkling against the wine bottle. “Say when, Bill!”

            “When, when!” exclaimed Bill. “My god, Sabra, you trying to get me drunk again?”

            “Wait, what’s this now?” demanded Howie, turning away from his slide projector with a suspicious frown creasing his heavy jowls.

            “You remember, How," laughed Bill, his round face rosy, "when we were at that winery and she kept pouring her tipple into my glass – “

            “Well, it was too _dry_ ,” said Sabra primly.

            “You and your sweet wine, _gelibte_ ,” grumbled Howie, and started to fiddle with the slide projector again, frowning down his big hooked nose.

            “I like sweet wine,” said Amelie, blinking angelically up at Sabra with her big brown eyes. “May I have some more, please?”

            “You like everything,” laughed Sabra indulgently. “You sat there and deliberately inhaled Jim’s cigar smoke. Don’t look so surprised, I saw you!”

            “That unhappy lady was so upset,” apologized Amelie, shrugging so that her thin shoulders brushed against her long feather earrings. “I thought if I could show her how good it smelled – “

            “She was just rude,” declared Sabra, waving one plump and beringed hand dismissively. “Nothing you could have done about it, _bubala_.”

            “You would have thought Jim had blown smoke in her face, the way she was complaining,” said Ellie indignantly. In sharp contrast to Amelie, whose long sleeveless dress was covered in embroidery and beads, Ellie Allen was trim and bandbox-neat in her uniform of pleated pants and blouse, dyed blonde hair immaculately coiffed. Steve glanced down at her hand; her fingers were tangled with her husband’s, and Jim was lightly, absently stroking her thumb. He smiled at them. “You know how careful we are not to smoke in public – “

            “More careful’n me,” grinned Bucky. “You guys are way too polite.”

            “You’re not _impolite_ , Bucky dear; you just don’t have much of a filter,” said Ellie, patting Bucky’s head. "It's not a _bad_ trait, necessarily. Just one of the things that makes you such an interesting and honest person."

            "Well, those are two adjectives I wouldn't've picked for me," grimaced Bucky. "But thanks, El."

            "I prefer to call him 'stimulating and authentic,'" offered Amelie brightly, taking a deep draught of her wine.

            "Again, thank you, I think," grinned Bucky. "So Ellie, what happened with the rude and snorty lady?"

            “Well," said Ellie, eyes twinkling, "just as the woman is winding up to complain self-righteously about cigarette smoking, Amelie says, loud enough for everyone on the train to hear: ‘Well, I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t bring my bong.’”

            Steve nearly snorted wine out of his nose. He laughed heartily with the rest. Amelie was smiling, gentle and serene as always, long gray-blond hair pulled back into a braided chignon topped with brightly-painted chopsticks, gifts, she explained, from some of the children at the homeless shelter where she ran the craft table. “It was a valid observation,” she said placidly, running her fingers through Bucky’s untidy mop. He beamed besottedly up at her. Steve knew Bucky liked his friends and loved his friends’ wives. Sabra fed him and fussed at him to be more careful. Ellie encouraged him and fussed at him to settle down. Amelie thought Bucky was perfect just as he was, and Bucky adored her best of all.

            “You should’ve pulled it out,” grinned Bucky. “That woulda stopped her dead, yeah, doll?”

            “You didn’t really bring your bong with you on the trip, did you, Amelie?” asked Steve, a little surprised.

            “I told her to,” said Bill. “But she said she’d better not.”

            “Well, it was an official group trip,” shrugged Amelie, taking a sip of wine. “I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.”

            “Woulda served ‘em right bein’ so stuffy,” declared Bucky, putting his beer down and dragging his next present into his lap.

            “I keep telling you, Bucky, that you put the wrong stuff in those hand-rolled cigarettes of yours,” said Amelie calmly.

            Sabra laughed. “Don’t encourage him, Amelie!” she scolded. She waddled into the kitchen and picked up Bucky's birthday cake, half-eaten and dotted with cherries. She paraded it back into the living room as though she were presenting St. John's head to Salome. “Who wants more Tres Leches cake?” she demanded.

            "I do!" said Bill. "I need to keep my energy up." He winked at Amelie, who gave him a sly smile over the rim of her wine glass.

            “I shouldn’t,” said Ellie reluctantly, eyeing the fluffy white concoction with less self-control than was her usual wont.

            “No, you shouldn’t,” agreed Sabra, her brown eyes twinkling. “But you will anyway, won’t you?” She cut a generous, dripping square and put it on Ellie’s plate. “You’re too thin anyway, _bubala_. Not healthy at our age.”

            "Hear, hear!" said her husband. "You worry too much about your waistline, darlin'. Let Sabra put some meat on those pretty bones of yours." He held out his plate, eyes twinkling. "That goes for me, too," he added.

            Ellie blushed, but smiled at her husband. “My pants are already too tight after this trip,” sighed Ellie, taking a forkful of cake. “All that delicious food!”

            “Elastic is your friend, sweetie,” said Amelie, patting Ellie’s shoulder. “And yes, Sabra, I will definitely have another piece of cake. It’s scrumptious!”

            “I got the recipe from Gracie Alvarado,” said Sabra, digging out fat white squares of cake. “She’s always saying how it’s Bucky’s favorite.”

            “It is,” Bucky averred. He turned the brightly-wrapped package in his hands. “Can I have another piece?”

            “Is that three or four?” grinned Steve. Bucky stuck his tongue out at him. “Hey, I’m not saying you should stop. I’ve had two, and I’m ready for another one too, Sabra.”

            “Anything you want, _boychick_ ,” said Sabra, pleased. "Here you go. Nice fat pieces for both you boys. Howie! Stop futzing with that thing and sit down! Bucky’s opening presents!”

            “Almost got it,” grunted Howie. He finished setting up the slide projector and sat down triumphantly beside it. “There! Now someone get the lights, already!”

            “I haven’t opened my present from Bill and Amelie yet,” complained Bucky.

            “Well, hurry it up,” urged Howie. “These slides won’t watch themselves.”

            Steve smiled and watched Bucky tear into his present. Sabra and Howie had given him cartoon-character golf club covers, now displayed goggling around his knees, and Jim and Ellie's gift had been a ball-washer, engendering a lot of double-entendre, much to Ellie's dismay. Bucky opened the box and pulled out a tissue-wrapped lump. He unwound it from its colorful cocoon and stared in surprise down at a digital camera.

            "Uh," he said, taken aback.

            "It's a camera," said Ellie, surprised.

            "Yeah," said Bucky slowly, studying it. His metal hand clicked against the casing.

            "A digital camera," added Amelie complacently, sipping her wine.

            “This'll take much better pictures than your phone,” declared Bill.

            “Aren’t these things kinda expensive?” asked Bucky, looking a little uncomfortable.

            “New, they are,” said Amelie. “This one is refurbished. So much greener than buying one new. All that packaging."

            "Gotta keep our local pawn shop in business, after all," admitted Bill with a wink, taking a big bite of cake.

            "And photography is such an underrated art, isn’t it, Howie?” said Amelie, blinking big brown eyes at him.

            “Well, I wouldn’t call my pictures ‘art,’ necessarily, Amelie,” admitted Howie, looking a little embarrassed. “I was just chronicling our adventures, you know?”

            “Nonsense, dear, your pictures are art to me,” said Sabra, kissing Howie’s fuzzy head affectionately. “Now, finish your cake so we can all see your pictures of St. Augustine.”

            Bucky was turning the camera around in his hands, turning it on, looking through the viewscope. “What do you think, Bucky?” asked Steve.

            “I got a camera,” said Bucky, still sounding surprised.

            “Just like you always wanted,” grinned Steve. “What’s the first thing you’re gonna take a picture of? Wait, let me guess … your beer.”

            Bucky grinned. “You ain’t lyin’,” he said, aimed, and snapped.

            “Hit the lights,” said Howie, turning on the projector. Jim clicked them off.

            “Who wants more wine?” called Sabra.

            “Not now,” laughed Ellie. “Pictures, Howie! Pictures!”

            “I have my own bottle,” said Amelie happily. “Drink up, girls! That’ll get us back in the St. Augustine mood.”

            “These three,” sighed Howie, projecting the first slide, and Jim and Bill laughed.

 

**XXX**

            Bucky made Steve carry the leftover cake and the rest of his presents home. He was busy trying to figure out how to take nighttime shots, and stopped every ten feet to snap pictures of random plants along the sidewalk. The night was warm and humid, thick with the scents of gardenias and asphalt and the distant tang of the ocean. A third-quarter moon, pale and lovely, shimmered down at them, veiling itself coquettishly in the thin, fast clouds. “I take it the camera’s a hit?” said Steve dryly.

            “You know it, pal,” said Bucky. “Oh, oh! Check out this cactus.” _Click_ went the shutter.

            “Good thing no one uses film anymore,” remarked Steve. “Otherwise you’d find yourself buried in photos of our neighbors’ yards.”

            “Shut up,” said Bucky absently. “It's like Amelie said. An unappreciated art.”

            "Right," nodded Steve, shifting gifts and birthday cake in his hands. "Photography is most definitely Art. Take a picture of that mailbox and show me how artistic you are."

            "Quit being pretentious, Mr. Artsy-Fartsy,” complained Bucky. He snapped the picture, checked it, and showed the result to Steve on the little display with an unsure smile.

            Steve tipped his head to one side contemplatively. The composition was all right, but the flash had illuminated the mailbox so that it showed stark against the dark grass, shadows sharp as razors. He decided he'd seen much worse during his tenure as docent at the Ringling. “Mailbox in the Moonlight, by upcoming new photographer James Buchanan Barnes," he declaimed approvingly. "Art.”

            “Art,” Bucky agreed, looking a little relieved.

            Steve pointed with his chin at a small brown lizard, perched on a fence and staring suspiciously at them. “Anole, also in the moonlight. Art, Mr. Barnes?”

            “Art, Mr. Rogers,” grinned Bucky. _Click._

            “Art,” nodded Steve. “Look, dog shit in the moonlight. Art.”

            Bucky raised an eyebrow. _Click._  Steve laughed.

            “You told Bill and Amelie I’d always wanted a camera,” said Bucky. “Didn’t you, Stevie?”

            “They asked,” admitted Steve. “And I remember you ogling those Kodaks at the Woolworth’s.”

            “I always wanted to get shots of the skyline from the fire escape,” said Bucky thoughtfully, looking up at a street light. _Click._ “Hey, Steve, remember that time we celebrated my birthday at that cabaret, where we heard Thelonious Monk? The one in Manhattan?”

            “Minton’s,” supplied Steve.

            “Yeah, that place. That was a gas,” said Bucky, aiming his new camera at a palm tree. _Click._

            “I spent the month’s rent getting us into that place,” mused Steve. “Could’ve bought you that Kodak after all.”

            “Nah,” grinned Bucky. “Camera woulda been great, sure, but I can say I saw Monk at Minton’s in 1941, and the camera woulda been in a junk shop by now.”

            “What _do_ you want me to do for your birthday, Buck?” asked Steve worriedly. “Ninety-eight’s a nice, big, round number. We didn’t do anything for your ninety-seventh.”

            “Well.” Bucky frowned up at a tree frog, clinging wetly to a palm frond. _Click._ “Wasn’t exactly in any kinda shape to do anything.”

            “No,” conceded Steve carefully. Last March had not been good to Bucky, bouncing between doctor's offices and one of SHIELD's hospital annexes in Sarasota, incapacitated by blistering migraines. He had spent his birthday curled into a ball on a hospital bed in a darkened room, hooked up to heart and brain monitors, shaking and sweating and vomiting bile, Steve wracked with worry by his side while doctors and nurses bustled quietly around him. Even his arm had been affected, humming and whirring as though it read its owner's distress, metal fingers twitching against the coarse sheets while flesh fingers clung desperately to Steve's hand. Dr. Cho had assured Steve it was just Bucky’s brain finally healing from seventy years’ worth of damage, nerves and ganglia rebuilding themselves after decades of cryo and EST by his handlers, but knowing the cause hadn’t helped either Bucky or Steve deal with the fallout. “So,” he said, “let’s think of something special for this year.”

            The two friends walked in silence for a few moments, turning from Bermuda Court onto Ponte Vedra, the row of neat duplexes paralleling the single-family homes across the street. They passed the Sandovals’ place, brightly lit and cheerful, and the Goudelocks across the street, Harry Connick Jr. piping tinnily through open windows. Every now and again Bucky would see something he thought was interesting, and snap a picture.

            Steve loved Palacios Del Mar, not because it was necessarily the best retirement community in Sarasota, but because it had been a safe haven for two super soldiers looking for sanctuary. No one questioned their appearance; no one objected too greatly to their presence – except maybe the McTavishes across the street, but they complained about everything – and they were comfortable there. It had given Bucky and Steve a place to figure out how they fit into the 21st Century, post-Sokovia Accords, and Steve was grateful.

            But … he was getting a little restless. A year and a half in Sarasota. Eighteen months. In one city.

            He hadn't stayed this long in one place since 1940.

            Bucky wouldn’t be allowed to leave the state until the two-year mark, but Florida was pretty big, and except for trips up to St. Petersburg to cheer on the Rays at Tropicana Field, and a hectic, nine-day tour of Orlando with the Bartons, they hadn’t seen much of it. Steve mulled over Howie Fetterman’s slide show, thought about the third-party organized Seniors Trip the three couples had taken to the other coast. Steve hadn't seen the Atlantic Ocean since they had bid good-bye to Foggy Nelson in Queens. Organized tours and preset schedules aside, it certainly looked like an interesting place. “We could go to St. Augustine,” he suggested casually.

            Bucky paused. He was crouched close to the ground in front of the Goudelocks’ house, focusing on a hibiscus blossom. He took the shot, then looked up at Steve through his messy hair. “I’m old,” he said acerbically. “I'm not _that_ old.”

            “I didn’t mean, take a seniors tour,” hastened Steve. “But the buildings, monuments, food, history – “

            “You and your history,” muttered Bucky, rising.

            “The winery, the distillery,” added Steve ingenuously. Bucky leveled a look at him that said he knew exactly what Steve was doing. “Hey, you said you liked the rum Bill brought back. And you drank nearly a whole bottle of that key lime wine tonight.”

            Bucky grunted. “Well,” he conceded, “it’s probably the only place in the whole damn state that’s older than us.”          

            “Food’s supposed to be good, too,” said Steve. “Those six seemed to like it.”

            Bucky was quiet a moment, fiddling with his camera. When he looked up at Steve, he was unnaturally serious.

            “You know I like Bill, Howie, and Jim,” he said.

            “Well, yeah,” said Steve, mystified. “I like them too, Bucky.”

            “And I love Amelie and Sabra and Ellie.”

            “Yeah,” said Steve expectantly.

            “But the wives, they haven't always got along. You know?” Bucky played absently with the F-stop on the camera. “You know. Ellie’s religious. Sabra’s loud. Amelie’s … “ He waved one hand around absently.

            “Amelie’s Amelie,” smiled Steve. “She’s unique.”         

            “Yeah,” said Bucky. “But tonight? After this trip they took with that seniors group? It’s like the girls, they bonded. They got tight.” He took an absent-minded picture of a leaf. “I liked it,” he admitted.

            “I did notice,” said Steve. “Maybe having to band together against the rest of the tour group was good for them.”

            “Yeah, maybe,” said Bucky. He ran his metal hand through his overlong hair and stared up at their duplex. “Funny thing, those three. I mean, Bill, Howie, and Jim? Lots in common. Golf, shuffleboard, fishing. But their wives?” He shrugged. “Maybe they needed that extra push, you know?”

            “I know,” said Steve, wondering where Bucky was going with this, or if he was going anywhere with it at all. It was hard to tell, sometimes, with Bucky’s colloquies. On occasion, topics led to some great concession or understanding. Other times, he was just musing about how no one made Jell-O molds anymore.

            “So,” said Bucky, starting to walk up their driveway.

            “So,” said Steve.

            “St. Augustine,” said Bucky. “Okay. Sure. You wanna take me someplace for my birthday? Let’s go there.” He found something interesting on his front stoop and took a quick picture of it. Steve squinted down. It was a garden snail, its glutinous trail silver in the moonlight. “Get us outa town,” he said absently. “See something new. Go someplace.”

            “All right, then,” said Steve, relieved. “I’ll start looking into it tomorrow morning.”

            Bucky glared. “No old people,” he threatened.

            “Buddy,” said Steve, unlocking his door, “I guarantee you, you’ll be the oldest person there.”


	2. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Just a post before the usual DragonCon madness. I've been reading a lot of comic books. Did you know that the Winter Soldier once smuggled a giant space aardvark into a Thai fusion restaurant on another planet? True story.
> 
> Any and all of you in Texas, please be safe. Harvey can fuck off any time. Sooner rather than later.

**2.**

 

            Bucky claimed to be “all birthdayed out” after the Fettermans’ party. “Don’t go crazy, Stevie,” he’d warned the next morning as he scarfed down the last of his cake. “Gimme a few weeks to feel like a birthday boy again.”

            That was fine with Steve. He liked to plan, and he preferred to take the time to do it well. Bucky wanted a couple of weeks? Wonderful. That meant Steve had time.

            That is, he thought he did.

            Two mornings after his birthday party, Bucky slid open Steve's patio door, phone in hand. The sun was still low on the horizon, rippling mellow tangerine over the low dune, and the pale green-blue sky was blazoned with bright clouds. Cattle egrets grunted irritably at each other, and somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. Steve looked at Bucky in surprise. Bucky wasn’t an early riser, and Steve hadn't even finished brewing his first pot of coffee yet.

            "Hey, Stevie," said Bucky. His voice was tight in the way it usually got when he was excited about something, but trying not to show it. "Check this out."

            Steve looked down at the phone screen, on which was displayed a stone lion.

            "What's this?" asked Steve curiously, scooping coffee into the antique percolator Nat had given him. Bucky usually didn’t notice anything remotely artistic unless it reminded him, in some odd way or another, of Steve.

            "A bridge," said Bucky. He swiped the screen with his thumb, and another stone lion appeared. "The statues are Italian. And the bridge is a whattayacallit, a drawbridge. It opens to let boats underneath it. Connects the mainland to some island or something."

            "Oh, okay," said Steve noncommittally. He filled the cistern at the tap. "Where is this?"

            Bucky gave him an incredulous look. "St. Augustine, you punk," he said, and stuffed his phone back in his pocket. "I want pancakes. You got any eggs?" He opened Steve's fridge and stared at the contents. Steve set the percolator on the stove, pulled a pad of paper towards himself, and picked up a pen.

            _Lion bridge,_ he wrote.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Steve was washing his car in the bright Florida afternoon when Bucky burst out his front door, laptop in hand.

            "Stevie," he said eagerly. "Look."

            Expecting a cat video, or a review for a new video gaming system, or a headers schematic for a '69 Barracuda, Steve turned off the hose and squinted in the sunlight. Displayed on Bucky's laptop screen was a strange-looking building with a red trolley parked in front of it.

            "Okay," he said slowly.

            "Remember reading ‘Ripley's Believe it or Not’ in the newspaper when we were kids?" prompted Bucky. "All that crazy shit. Two-headed cows. Giant sharks. Ladies with plates in their ears."

            "I remember," said Steve. Next to the comics and the crossword, it had been Bucky’s favorite part of the Times. He could still recall Bucky sitting in his shirtsleeves and suspenders on a Sunday morning before Mass, newspaper open and folded back, his dry drawl pointing out interesting facts about tongue tattoos and Muslims.

            "This is a museum," said Bucky eagerly. "A fuckin' _museum_ , Steve. Full of all kinds of weird stuff." At Steve's blank look, Bucky added, a little deflated: "It's … right outside the Old City."

            "Sarasota?" asked Steve, still puzzled.

            "No, dumbass," said Bucky. "St. Augustine." He rolled his eyes and went back inside, leaving Steve holding a leaking hose and a soapy sponge.

            Steve turned off the hose, dried his hands, and went inside his half of the duplex. He picked up the notepad in the kitchen and wrote: _Ripleys museum._

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            His new book on post-war Korean fiscal reconstruction was a slow read, so he welcomed the sound of his patio door sliding open. The evening was warm and sticky, filled with the chirrup of tree frogs. A moth wobbled its way into the living room. Bucky's hair was slicked into a ponytail, and he was wearing a Proclaimers tee shirt and jeans without holes, indicating a night of drinking and debauchery was ahead of him. Steve tried his damndest to tamp down any concern about his exploits, knowing the only danger Bucky’s marks were in nowadays was a broken heart. "Hey," Bucky said, affecting nonchalance. "Didja know St. Augustine has a working lighthouse?"

            "Yeah?" smiled Steve, setting his book on his knee.

            "Yeah," said Bucky. "You can, like, climb it and everything. View’s supposed to be outa this world." He paused, looking conflicted, as though he were unsure whether or not to be shamefaced. Steve was far from a prude, but Bucky knew his opinion on catting around. "Goin' out," he said quickly, and slid the door shut behind him, preventing any argument.

            Steve slipped the dust cover flap in the book to keep his place, set the book down, and got up. In the kitchen, he turned the notepad so it faced him.

            _Lighthouse_ , he wrote.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Steve was dreaming about an old op, something involving Tony and Clint. His dream drifted randomly from one place to another – Bolivia, Tangiers, Los Angeles – then alarms went off, and in his dream, he started to fall sideways. He woke with a start.

            Bucky was sitting at the foot of his bed, his metal arm glinting in the darkness. Steve kept forgetting how much of the Winter Soldier was still left, lurking like the remains of a poorly-excised tumor. This time, though, there was no feral crouch, no stench of gunpowder and vomit; Bucky smelled familiarly of beer and sex and drugstore perfume. His hair was shaggy, out of its ponytail, obscuring his features in the darkness.

            "Hey," he whispered.

            "Hey," grated Steve. His heart was still thumping.

            "So I hooked up with this chick at a club," Bucky said. "She said they have pirate boat tours on the bay, whaddaya call it, Matanzas. A real fuckin' pirate ship, Steve."

            "Oh," said Steve. He struggled into a sitting position.

            "Don't get up," said Bucky. "Night's still young." He slid off Steve's bed soundlessly, his weight shifting the mattress, and padded on bare feet out Steve's bedroom. A moment later, Steve heard the front door open and close, and the bolt slide home; then the Barracuda rumbled to life and faded into the distance.

            Steve swung his legs off the side of the bed and clicked on his light, rubbing his eyes. He picked up a pencil and a pad of paper on his side table and wrote, _pirate ship_.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Tuesday was Bucky's golf day, which insinuated Steve was, at least temporarily, off the clock. This meant he could indulge his typically neglected appetites, far from Bucky's curious and often teasing eye. He was taking advantage of this by having lunch with one of the more interesting local sculptors he'd met at the Ringling – thirty, blonde, green eyes – when the persistent buzzing of his phone at his hip made him say, a little irritably, "Excuse me a moment. This might be important."

            He opened the screen. He had missed five texts from Bucky's phone.

 

            **BUCKY: theres a chocolate factory**

**BUCKY: right next to the wine place**

**BUCKY: they have tours and give you chocolate for free**

**BUCKY: bill how and jim say good chocolate you buy it right there**

**BUCKY: need 2 go ther**

            "Is everything all right?" asked blonde-and-green eyes, taking a sip of her Campari. Light jazz floated around their heads, and the tuxedo-clad waiter set down a basket of fresh baguette before opening a bottle of Côtes du Rhône. Her red dress, a perfect offset to his sleek gray suit, had a neckline that invited contemplation, and he could feel one of her black pumps lightly brush against his calf. Steve smiled, and met her eyes with a warm, attentive gaze.

            "Everything's fine," he assured her, scooping up her slim, calloused hand in his own. She pressed her fingers into his palm and blinked slowly at him, her green eyes limpid with promise.

            As she was telling the waiter she wanted the _Moules Provençal_ and _Salade de tomates à l'échalote_ , Steve hurriedly scribbled on a gum wrapper: _chocolate factory._

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Captain Rogers was an expert tactician.

            Given adequate data, he could craft an op so sleek, so well-defined, that victory was inevitable. Many times, he had laid out his plans before his peers and subordinates – Colonel Philips, Peggy, the STRIKE team, even Nick Fury – and receive impressed frowns and nods for his efforts. He was a good captain, a good leader. He could explain said plan and order its implementation with finesse and confidence.

            The funny thing about sergeants is that, even if the plan isn't theirs, even if they don't agree with it, it is their job to put it into play. Assess supplies. Repopulate vacancies. Soothe (and in some cases, discipline) nay-sayers. The primary thing that had made the Howling Commandos such a formidable force during the War was Steve's planning. The secondary was Bucky's implementation. Steve knew damn well that despite his men's respect for him, despite research and plans and triple-checking intel, a lot of ops would have fallen to pieces if Bucky hadn't been scrambling behind him, worrying about clean socks and extra MRE's and the weather reports and whether or not Dum Dum had paid Morita back that five dollars. Paperwork and politics had occupied the greater part of Steve's downtime afterwards while Bucky saw to the men – their posts, letters, arguments, cigarette rations, mental health. A visiting Washington dignitary had complained acerbically once, after a particularly bloody little op in Austria, that the Howling Commandos played while the Captain did all the work.

            That hadn't gone over very well. Fortunately, Philips had nipped the issue in the bud before Steve could reply. From a distance, Steve knew what Bucky did certainly looked like he was "playing" with the Howlies – poker games, bottles of bourbon, pin-up photos and dance hall jaunts – but he had every confidence that his sergeant knew those men inside and out, the fluctuations of strength and weakness, the number of smokes in their supply tent right down to the last Lucky Strike.

            Things were a little backwards, now.

            It wasn't that Bucky had lost any intelligence or the ability to multi-task and organize over the past seventy years; it was that his poor fried brain made it a hundred times harder to focus, and Bucky found it very difficult to give enough damns to try. His handlers had violently discouraged straying from mission presets, and Bucky retained a healthy fear of personal initiative.

            Certain things were still handled with Sgt. Barnes' legendary aplomb: lawn and vehicle care, golf rounds, Steve's Amazon wish list, visits from the Barton kids. Registers and schedules and calendars helped Bucky's gray matter keep the work flow and materials coordinated. But Steve remembered with a frisson of worry what Sam had warned him about Bucky's decision-making: It could, and almost certainly would, add stress to Bucky's environment, and might dislodge Bucky's progress enough for him to fold backwards.

            Bucky had come so far, the past couple of years. Steve was terrified of a relapse. Bullets in bellies and collateral damage aside, Sarasota had become too damn comfortable for Steve to be willing to compromise it in any way. He was determined to conduct Bucky's Birthday Op from conception to reality with such well-organized perfection that Sgt. J.B. Barnes wouldn't have to worry his scruffy little head about a thing.

            The schedule for their trip to St. Augustine, printed off an Excel spreadsheet with color-coordinated font colors and pie charts, was a thing of beauty. He had even given Bucky his own packing list, careful to include toiletries and extra supplies to preclude accidents or omissions. He couldn't guarantee Bucky would follow the suggestions on the sheet, but hell, at least he'd tried, right? If Bucky decided to bring nothing but tattered board shorts and offensive tee shirts, Sam assured him that it was most definitely not Steve's problem.

            Steve's suitcase was a nondescript light blue, clean, crisp, and packed with a mind toward efficiency that reflected his high Tetris scores. His cell phone was fully charged and the map app preset with their trip route. He had informed Maria Hill of their plans, though he was pretty sure nothing they did was secret anymore; he could only spend so much time hunting for bugs in the duplex. There was bottled water in case Bucky complained he was thirsty, and snacks for when he inevitably cried starvation. Steve's silver sedan was clean, the first aid and emergency kits stocked, and the oil freshly changed. He had the phone number, address, and confirmation for their hotel room printed and stowed in his glove compartment. He had even thought to ask Laura Barton to get the kids to record and send a happy birthday video to Bucky after their arrival.

            He'd thought of everything, he reflected a little smugly. Then he remembered how Bucky had packed for their last trip to Orlando, and the smugness faded into a vague worry that perhaps he'd better check Bucky's luggage in case he decided to bring another live turtle as a mascot.

            He heard his back door slide open, and the telltale slap of bare feet on his hardwoods. He stepped out of his bedroom, suitcase in hand. "Morning, Buck," he said.

            Bucky was already filling a mug with fresh, hot coffee. "Mrgl," he said vaguely. He hadn't brushed his hair, and it hung lank over half his face. He had apparently made an effort to dress well for the trip, because the plaid shorts, though loud, were clean, and his tee shirt plain and unobjectionable. A pair of relatively new sandals was sitting beside the old lumpy, overstuffed Army duffel. Steve saw the corner of his packing list sticking out of the duffel front pocket and felt inordinately flattered.

            "All set?" he asked briskly.

            "M'yuh," mumbled Bucky into his coffee. "Fffftttt jeeeeeez it's earlyyyyyy." He rubbed his eyes with the palm of his flesh hand.

            "The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there," smiled Steve. He dumped the hot water out of his thermos and filled it with the rest of the coffee from the percolator. "We can pick up breakfast on the way."

            "No fuckin' McDonalds," said Bucky. "Wanna chicken biscuit." He paused, brow furrowed in thought, and amended, “Two chicken biscuits.”

            "Anything you want, birthday boy," chuckled Steve.

            "An' tater tots. Lots of tater tots."

            "Okay."

            "No ketchup."

            "Do I look like a damn drive-through?" complained Steve. Taking his life in his hands, he snatched the coffee out of Bucky's hands. "Get this in a travel mug. Let's go before your brain wakes up."

            "Yeah, fuck you, pal," said Bucky, but his threatening words were disarmed by a huge yawn.

            Steve transferred Bucky's coffee into a sturdy travel mug, rinsed out the original coffee cup, and put it in the dishwasher. Bucky stood in the kitchen and blinked blearily at him. "Grab your gear," said Steve, picking up his suitcase. "Let's go."

            "Gotta piss," grumbled Bucky irritably, shuffling out of the kitchen to the half-bath in the entryway. Steve rolled his eyes, scooped up Bucky's duffel, and headed to the garage.

            He'd already opened the garage door, and the brilliant, heady scents of a Florida morning were rolling in past the workaday smell of his garage, gasoline and oil and roach spray. The sun was still low, the sky awash in green and gold and crowded with plush fat clouds lined in silver. A pair of cattle egrets paused during their morning breakfast to stare with shining black eyes at him, then, determining he wasn't a threat, went back to their bugs.

            Steve stowed their bags in the trunk, unzipping the duffel and groping around quickly to make sure it was turtle-free. He felt something square and cold, and fished it out: Bucky's new camera, polished and clean, a new lens cap screwed firmly on. Steve smiled and shook his head, anticipating the morass of pictures either excitedly snapped, or taken with bored irony. Satisfied Bucky's luggage was free of stowaways, he zipped the camera back into the duffel, shut the trunk, and put Bucky's coffee in the console next to his own. He stood at the garage entrance, hands on his hips, looking out over the neighborhood with a satisfied smile. There was something about a road trip that interested and excited him, and knowing he'd dotted all his I's and crossed all his T's gave him the comforting assurance that everything would go smoothly.

            He glanced at his watch. Bucky couldn't possibly still be in the bathroom, could he? Jingling his keys in his hand, he went back into his house.

            He found Bucky standing in the living room, perfectly still, eyes wide open and staring blankly. The early morning sun slanted through the front window and glanced off his left arm; the adamantium flashed briefly, like an emergency strobe. Steve hesitated. His friend was looking from one wall to the other – not out the windows, or at the furniture or doorways, just Steve's walls.

            Steve swallowed. He never knew what would set Bucky off. Outbursts and meltdowns were rare these days, but it would be just like Bucky's perfidious nature to have an emotional break right when they were set to go on vacation.

            "Bucky?" he said softly.

            Bucky turned. He was frowning, his pale eyes looking bewildered and a little concerned. "Steve," he said. His voice was husky and hesitant. "They're bare."

            "What?" Steve sucked in a breath, his chest going tight. Bucky had been doing so well. Mentally, he repeated Sam's number in his head, wondering if he'd wake him up this early, or if he'd be on a run. Illogically, he felt irritated that his coffee would go cold while untangling whatever mess was in his best friend's brain.

            "Why are they bare?" asked Bucky, turning to face Steve. His eyes weren't angry or confused, and better still, not empty of thought or emotion, which in Steve's opinion was the worst yet. "They shouldn't be bare."

            "What shouldn't be bare, Buck?" asked Steve carefully, fighting the urge to step up and give Bucky a hug. There were times when touching Bucky grounded him, but there were also moments in which a hand on his shoulder would throw him into a panicked rage.

            Bucky waved his arms, the metal flashing again. "Your walls," he said. "You got nothin' on 'em."

            Steve looked around his living room, frowning. "Uh," he said. "They've always been bare, Buck."

            Bucky frowned. "No, they haven't," he argued. "You useta have – " He waved his arms again; the sunlight reflecting off the metal plates careened wildly across the beige surfaces. " – Stuff – pictures – everywhere. Color and black and white and red and … " Bucky trailed off, his eyes tracking away from Steve's, back around the room. He didn't look angry or upset, but simply a little sad. "You got nothin' on your walls, Steve."

            "Oh," said Steve, the knot in his chest relaxing a little. Bucky was remembering their shitty little Brooklyn flat, the shabby walls covered with pages torn from art text books, lined paper filled with sketches, brightly dabbled cheap cardboard, the paintings' colors limited by their budget and the price of bread and Oleo. "I guess I haven't gotten around to it yet, Bucky."

            Bucky turned in a full circle, his eyes abstract and melancholy. "Where'd it all go?" he asked forlornly. "Your stuff, your – your stuff. Where is it?"

            "I honestly have no idea," admitted Steve. He'd barely spared a thought for his old artwork, tacked up on the apartment walls to cover peeling paint and stains. After Bucky had shipped out, it hadn't really mattered that much, and when Steve had gone to Lehigh, their old landlord had sublet the flat almost immediately. "Probably got thrown out years ago."

            "Years ago," Bucky repeated softly. "Huh."

            They stood in silence, Bucky's eyes lost in the twisted thread of time. Steve forced himself to breathe calmly, hoping desperately that nothing would come of this odd interlude. Sure enough, when a horn beeped in the distance, Bucky seemed to come back to himself, his eyes sharpening, mouth curling into a smile.

            "Mr. What’s-his-name, that prick," he said, voice thick and hesitant. His memory was not always accurate. "Always telling you to take it down."

            "Dimmesdale," said Steve with a relieved smile.

            "Mr. Dimmesdale, right," concurred Bucky. "What a jerk." He paused, considering their old landlord. "Wife was kinda pretty, though."

            "Yeah, that you'd remember," laughed Steve.

            Bucky grinned. "You know me and redheads," he said, and yawned again. "Jesus, I need coffee. And a chicken biscuit."

            "Get your ass in the car, then," said Steve. "Been waiting for you."

            "Yeah," said Bucky, shuffling back into his sandals and following Steve out of the living room. He hesitated, glancing back at the bare walls and tapping the door jamb with two metal fingers; then he turned away as though nothing had happened.

            Steve reminded him to buckle up and not spill his damn coffee, and Bucky called him a mother hen and turned on the radio, and they backed out of Steve's garage without further ado, though Steve did remind Bucky that the driver picked the music. "Shotgun shuts his cakehole," Bucky agreed equably, and didn't even complain about the jazz Steve chose as they rolled down Ponte Vedra out of the neighborhood.

 


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, lovelies! Sheraiah and I made it safely through Irma to the other side! First it hit HER, and then it hit ME, and the downside is dirty water and fallen trees and associated crap like that, but the upside was not having to go into our respective places of work and getting our electricity back, so (1) Awesome and (2) Fuck Hurricanes. Donate to the Red Cross. Or if you can't afford it, give blood. Or if you can't give blood, do what you can. Let's prove the Angry Nazi Aliens wrong and do nice things for each other.
> 
> Also, here is Chapter 3, full of Steve being Steve and Bucky being Bucky. Because we love you guys. :-)

**3.**

 

            Bucky fell asleep as soon as they pulled onto 301.

            Steve glanced over at him and smiled, heart twisting warm inside him. Bucky's head was tipped back against the window, eyes closed, mouth open, swaying with the movement of the car. Steve had grown as attuned to Bucky's sleep habits as a newborn's mother, carefully cataloging every moment in slumber and rejoicing when the numbers went up. A year and a half ago, Bucky hadn't slept more than two or three hours a night, afflicted as he'd been with night terrors and bad dreams. Steve's frugal nature had frowned at Bucky's expensive Sleep Number bed, but he was forced to admit it had contributed greatly to Bucky's recovery.

            The car smelled of chicken biscuits and coffee, and Jesse Cook’s “Havana” played softly over the speakers. Steve frankly admitted he didn’t understand eighty per cent of the shit Bucky listened to. There was a lot of screaming, both of guitars and people, and Bucky insisted upon listening to it at top volume, making his window panes rattle. But Sam had sent Steve an article outlining why music like that helped people with various forms of PTSD process their anger, so Steve put up with the dull thumps and shrieking vocals, shaking his head over the hostile, desperate screams.

            He personally was finding the progression of modern jazz – particularly instrumentals – more intellectually appealing, and was on a Spanish guitar kick. Sharon had sent him several mp3 files containing samples of artists she thought he might like – Di Meola, Benson, Wrembel – inspiring Bucky to throw himself into research about modern jazz guitarists so Steve would have something new to listen to. His excited exploration on Steve’s behalf went on for a good three hours until he got bogged down by a video of Irish people taste-testing jelly beans, and then, as abruptly as he had started, it was over. Fortunately, he had amassed a file of a good twenty-three musicians worthy of note, giving Steve ample room to investigate.

            Steve was glad Bucky slept through the migrant labor camps. He knew the sight of those burnt-brown, shabby children would have distressed him. Steve’s response to that kind of inhumanity was to be indignant, to want to fix it; Bucky’s go-to emotion when children were suffering was to want to kill someone. Steve hoped he got over it eventually, and found himself wondering how his Hydra handlers had coped with the Winter Soldier, had trace evidence of Bucky’s sense of vengeance ever risen to the surface, volatile oil slicked over cold water, just waiting for the match to spark a conflagration. He’d never be able to ask Bucky about it, of course; poking too deeply into the Winter Soldier’s memories was a good way to trigger either a panic attack or a violent outburst, and Steve had learned over the past year and a half that those never ended well. But he kind of wished he could have seen, at least once, the Winter Soldier beating the everloving shit out of a cruel Hydra soldier.

            Cook made way for a Gipsy Kings medley. The Iberian trills vibrated in the car speakers, and Bucky made a snuffling sound that reminded Steve of a congested pug. He glanced over. Bucky had rested his head against the seat belt, and it supported him like a hammock; his arms were folded across his chest. A wide stripe of sunlight transected his metal arm. Steve checked the dashboard clock. Bucky had been sleeping about an hour, but Steve had no way of knowing how well Bucky had slept the night before. Unless he heard the nightmare screams, he could only hope that his friend had gotten a full eight.

            Steve rarely got a full eight himself, but that didn’t concern him. He would catch up later. When Bucky was normal again.

            He promised.

            He watched the mile markers pass, his mind on the artist he’d met at the Ringling. Blonde, green eyes, completely uninterested in either Avengers or Accords, and one of the best contemporary glass sculptors in the United States, she was enthusiastic about their interactions while still being cautious enough that he remained interested. Being a docent at the Ringling for the past six months had afforded him a lot of perks, but this was one he’d not been expecting. He was pleasantly surprised by both her talent and interest, and hoped she’d be amenable to a second date. Or a third, or a fourth  ...

            Steve’s pleasant ruminations were interrupted by a low gurgle. He turned to Bucky. He was still asleep, but his mouth was gritted shut, his eyebrows lowered, and his hands were clenching and unclenching in his lap. There was a whirring noise as the plates in his left arm shifted, then vibrated a little, as though picking up on its owner’s distress.

            Steve frowned. Could be nothing. Synapses misfiring. Maybe Bucky was hungry. It seemed like Bucky was always hungry nowadays.

            Bucky gave a strangled noise, like choked-off whimper, then jerked awake with a gasp, hands fisted in the legs of his shorts. Steve carefully pretended he didn’t notice. He’d learned that fussing over Bucky’s inevitable nightmares just made him shut down or get angry. Like Sam said, if Bucky wanted to talk about it, he’d talk about it. Otherwise, Steve kept his mouth shut.

            The Gipsy Kings trilled to a stop. Steve thumbed the “stereo off” button on the steering wheel. The only noise in the car besides Bucky’s fast, shallow breath was the muffled road noise of the tires on the asphalt. Steve waited until Bucky’s breathing slowed and the metal fist in Bucky’s lap unclenched.

            A billboard for Denny’s passed by. “You hungry?” said Steve, making sure his voice sounded calm and disinterested. “You only had two chicken biscuits.”

            Bucky hesitated. If he was grateful for Steve’s contrived ignorance, he didn’t show it. “Nah,” he said; his voice didn’t even shake. “Not for Denny’s. You see an IHOP, I’m in.”

            “You got it,” smiled Steve. Bucky shifted in his seat, as though trying to get comfortable.

            “Why’s it so quiet in here?” he complained. Steve grinned.

            “You asked for it,” he said, and turned the stereo on. Bucky listened to the opening strains of Tomatito without comment, staring out his window. Steve shook his head. He must have found it relaxing.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            As promised, they stopped for pancakes in Lakeland, then skirted Orlando north. Steve had no desire to get ensnared by theme park traffic, and they had found they would rather avoid Eisenhower’s broad concrete interstates that had unrolled while they both were otherwise occupied. Steve preferred the scenery on backroads. Bucky, of course, was far more invested in the restaurants found off the beaten path.

            “Blackwater Inn,” Bucky read off a billboard. It had been an hour and a half since they had each consumed breakfast sampler platters with sides of blueberry pancakes, extra bacon, and a whole pot of coffee. Naturally, Bucky would be getting hungry again. “Hey. Seafood.”

            “Yeah,” said Steve. “Because we never eat seafood in Sarasota. Not a fish to be found. Can’t even remember the last time I saw a fish on my plate. Oh yeah, it was yesterday.”

            “Shut up, punk,” retorted Bucky. He hummed to himself. “Wonder if they got good hush puppies?”

            “Probably,” conceded Steve. “Don’t think I’ve had a bad hush puppy in this entire state.” He glanced at his GPS. They were only an hour and a half from their hotel. Despite stopping for food twice already, they were making good time. He wondered how early they could check in to the room.

            “You know,” Bucky added, “I haven’t had a good slice o’ green pie in a while.”

            “You had key lime pie last week,” protested Steve indignantly.

            “That’s a while,” argued Bucky. “Hey, you know it’s stone crab season?”

            Steve’s traitorous stomach chose that moment to growl. Bucky just smiled.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Bucky brought his camera into the restaurant. Steve didn’t mind him snapping pictures of the sign out front, or the view from the upper deck, or even their food, but he felt obliged to protest when Bucky slipped into the ladies’ room with it. “It was empty,” he defended himself. “And the gent’s had a funny poster. Ladies’ room was even better.”

            “Bucky, no,” groaned Steve.

            “I want another helping of cheese curds,” said Bucky. “Hey, while we’re at it, want some of those alligator chunks?”

            “Tastes like chicken,” sighed Steve.

            “One more serving of alligator means one less gator fuckin’ up some fella’s golf game,” said Bucky.

            “That happen to you often?” asked Steve dryly.

            “Happened to Jim last week,” said Bucky. “Chipped in the rough, ended up next to a gator’s head. Wouldn’t let me retrieve it, though,” he said a little sadly. “Took a Mulligan.”

            “Jesus, Bucky,” laughed Steve. “You’d have gone toe to toe with a gator for a golf ball?”

            “Yeah,” said Bucky thoughtfully. “Bet I coulda took him.”

            It was on the tip of Steve’s tongue to joke, _What, do you want to lose the other arm?_ … but he decided against it. _Too soon_ , he thought, and smiled sadly while Bucky jollied their waitress into another round of beer. It would probably always be too soon for a joke like that.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            “What the hell is that?” demanded Bucky, pointing through the driver’s side window.

            Steve had to slow down to gape at the enormous metal sculpture on the side of the road. “It’s … Iron Man?” he guessed. “I think?”

            “It’s a _terrible_ Iron Man,” said Bucky.

            “It’s the worst Iron Man ever,” agreed Steve. “Wait – is that a - ?”

            The two super soldiers stared.

            “A giant chicken,” said Bucky, eyes round with wonder. “Made of metal.”

            The two super soldiers stared in awe. The roadside vendor looked as though it took up a good acre, shaded by pin oaks and Spanish moss. They could catch tantalizing glimpses of pottery, statuary, bird baths, and furniture.

            “Steve. Stop,” begged Bucky. “I want to take a picture of the shitty Iron Man.” He took a deep breath and murmured, “I wonder if it’s for sale?”

            “Bucky, _no_ ,” said Steve, alarmed. There was no way in hell the Homeowner’s Association would forgive something that hideous.

            “I could put it in the back yard,” said Bucky hopefully. He twisted around in his seat as Steve drove away, watching the horrible Iron Man effigy shrink in the rear window.

            “It wouldn’t fit in my car,” Steve said firmly.

            Bucky sighed. “Man, I shoulda bought a truck,” he muttered. “Can we at least stop on the way home?”

            Steve sighed. “Sure, why not?” he said. “Maybe they’ll have a smaller Iron Man. Something that’ll fit in your living room.”

            Bucky brightened. “Now, there’s a thought,” he said.

            “Jesus Christ,” muttered Steve. “I was joking.”

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Another benefit of eschewing interstates was taking A1A up the coast. Bucky complained enough about the music that Steve let him poke through his CDs, and Bucky was delighted to find a Glenn Miller best-of compilation. They spent an hour admiring the gray-green Atlantic, counting pelicans, and trying to remember the words to songs like “Under Blue Canadian Skies” and “Ain’t Cha Coming Out.”

            Bucky put in Tommy Dorsey as they crossed the Matanzas River. “Where we staying?” he asked, looking out his window. The ocean water was striped with dusky whitecaps, and the blue sky piled high with brilliant plush clouds. “Gonna stay where the couples stayed on their tour?”

            “No way,” said Steve firmly. “No national chains for you and me, Buck. We’re gonna stimulate the local economy.”

            Steve didn’t have to look at Bucky; he could practically hear the eyebrows going up. “All right, Captain Socially Conscious,” he said dryly. “Gonna dig our own foxholes? Buy our food from the farmer down the street?”

            “No, asshole,” said Steve. “Found a family-owned hotel. Says they have a pool.”

            “In the old city?” asked Bucky skeptically.

            “Jesus, no,” laughed Steve. “You really want to stay at a bed and breakfast? Two single men, surrounded by all that chintz and potpourri? You think people talk about us _now_?”

            “All right, fine, sweetheart,” grinned Bucky. “Didn’t know you were so ashamed to be seen with my ugly mug.” He tipped his head to one side, considering. “But yeah. Bed ‘n breakfast, us? Nah. Too froofy for two retired Army guys. You got us a good li’l motel someplace?”

            “Anastasia Island,” said Steve, gesturing to the approaching sign.

            “Anesthesia Island,” laughed Bucky. “Where we go to make the pain go away.”

            “There’s an English pub across the street,” added Steve. “That ought to help.”

            “Beer as pain killer,” agreed Bucky. “Nice.”

            “Apparently there’s a restaurant – “

            “Mini-golf!” interrupted Bucky with sudden enthusiasm. “Look, Stevie! Mini-golf!”

            Steve shook his head. Sometimes Bucky was a calculating, incisive machine, sharp-tongued and quick, a terrifying combination of Sgt. Barnes and the Winter Soldier. And sometimes, Bucky had the brain of a day-old chick. Steve had given up trying to figure out which one he preferred.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Bucky wandered across the motel parking lot. Steve was getting their room key, and Bucky was restless from being in the car, enclosed in metal and glass. The tiny motel office was cramped, and the concierge kept staring at Bucky’s arm, making him shivery and uncomfortable. A quick, understanding glance from Steve granted him permission to escape, both acknowledging the unspoken rule that he not wander far. Seventy years ago, that would have pissed Bucky off – hell, a year ago, it _did_ piss Bucky off – but the restriction, he knew, was more than just a safety net for him; it was comforting for Steve, too. Bucky was okay with things that made Steve comfortable.

            The sun was bright in the clear blue sky, and the air smelled of asphalt, cooking grease, and exhaust. He measured the length of the lot, the height of the hotel, the number of rooms compared to the number of staircases leading up to the second floor, and the angle of the roof, in case he had to run across it for any reason. He knew, empirically, that running across the roof in the middle of the night was probably not something he needed to plan for, but he couldn’t help himself.

            Across the two-lane divided highway, businesses, a vacant lot, too exposed for clandestine meetings, the roar of the cars providing aural cover. He pulled out his plastic baggie and rolled himself a cigarette. He technically couldn’t get addicted to nicotine anymore, but he was always restless, energy like heat roiling in his belly, and fiddling with his hands and mouth helped leak the excess out before it exploded in invective or sarcasm.

            He pulled out his cell phone, checked his messages – two from Bill and Amelie, one from Howie – and thumbed his music app open. The not-so-soothing strains of Disturbed’s “Stupify” blared tinnily up at him, and he sighed. Bucky didn’t understand eighty per cent of the shit Steve listened to. There was a lot of discordant guitar work, and smoky-voiced girls crooning wobbily about love and disappointment, and Steve insisted upon listening to it in the car, making Bucky’s head hurt. But Clint had told Bucky that people suffering from PTSD needed to find music that appealed to them, calmed them down and helped them focus, so Bucky put up with it for Steve’s sake, though he didn’t really understand how you could process inner sorrow by listening to something that sounded so sad. It just seemed backwards to him.

            He sampled the air, circled the parking lot again, and oriented himself. Floridian mid-peninsula, barrier reef island, east coast, off-season, low-target area. Then his eye caught the gleam of heavily processed water, and he strolled across the mostly vacant parking lot to the other side of the hotel.

            He leaned on the fence and contemplated the pool, all three thousand pitiful little gallons of it. He hoped Steve hadn't chosen the hotel based on whether or not it had a pool. He hated it when Steve was disappointed. And of course it was always worse when Steve was trying so hard to do things for other people, especially Bucky, and something came up short somehow, because Steve took it so personally, as though he had deliberately let the other person down.

            It drove Bucky crazy. But honestly, Steve had been driving Bucky crazy for decades, so this was nothing new. He hoped Steve wasn’t disappointed in the tiny pool. Personally, Bucky thought it was fucking hilarious. He’d have to show Steve how funny he thought it was before Steve had a chance to feel disappointed; then it wouldn’t matter so much, and they could get on to the next task, which Bucky hoped involved food of some sort.

            He heard the hotel office door shut and knew Steve was looking for him. Safety net aside, Steve’s constant niggling concern bothered Bucky. What the hell did Steve think he was gonna do, beg his Hydra handlers to take him back? Jesus. Bucky couldn’t remember ever having been this warm, safe, or well-fed. Granted, Bucky’s memory wasn’t something that could be relied upon, but he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d be a fucking idiot to run from his life now.

            “Hey, Stevie,” he said. He knew Steve’s enhanced hearing would pick up his voice, even over the noise of the road. “Check this out.”

            Steve came up behind him, a solid, warm presence, and leaned by his side, looking down at the little pool. “Well, that’s disappointing,” said Steve, but his voice was laced with humor.

            Mission accomplished.

            “Lookit that sign,” chuckled Bucky, pointing. “’No Diving.’ No shit.”

            “Can you imagine anyone thinking diving into this bathtub was a good idea?” laughed Steve.  Bucky grinned.

            “Just deep enough to drown somebody, but not deep enough to do the backstroke,” he concurred, then flinched when he realized what he’d said. He couldn’t actually remember ever drowning someone, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done it once before, and he didn’t want Steve to think he’d remembered something bad, because Steve loved it when he remembered good stuff but got very sad when he remembered bad stuff, and Bucky hated it when Steve got sad because of him. Fortunately, Steve didn’t seem to make the connection, thank god, because he jingled the hotel key in his hand.

            “Come on, let’s stow our gear and look around. Front desk says it’s a walking bridge.”

            “Wait.” Bucky tried to pull up his mental map, and something shorted out. His brain fuzzed and lurched maddeningly, obliterating whatever it was he was trying to say. He struggled a moment, willing the memory to return, but it was gone. “Goddammit,” he muttered, biting his lip. “We’re – this is Anastasia Island, and that means – “

            “The Bridge of Lions,” said Steve, waving his arm past the hotel, up the street into the sunshine. He grinned. “We can walk right across it. You can take pictures of the lions themselves.”

            Bucky brightened. “Hot damn,” he said. “We’ll be walking right across the bay, the – the – " The memory was gone, jammed sideways into a hole in his brain somewhere. "The Bay of Whaddayacallit.”

            “Matanzas,” said Steve patiently.

            “Matanzas.” Bucky’s metal hand clinked against the pool fence. It didn’t really matter if he couldn’t remember everything he’d researched on St. Augustine, not really, because Steve would remember it for him. He was amazingly efficient that way. “Okay,” he said, suddenly grateful for Steve, for his drive and competence and willingness to drag Bucky to all these warm bright places with all the food and beer he could consume. “Let’s do this.”

            “Let’s,” smiled Steve, and led him back to his boring silver sedan.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Cheap touristy hotels are cheap touristy hotels the world over, filled with stained bathroom tile and chintzy white towels and unnecessarily revolting polyester bedspreads. Bucky spared a brief and disinterested thought that the Anastasia Inn reminded him of the Lido Beach Motel they’d stayed at when they had first arrived in Florida, dug his camera out of his duffel, and declared himself ready to go. Steve, of course, had to unpack his clothes neatly into the provided dresser first, and gave Bucky such a nettled look that Bucky could only sigh and chuck his assorted tee shirts and underwear in a waiting drawer.

            Placated, Steve let Bucky drag him out of the hotel and down the street. Walking down a Florida sidewalk in the summer, Bucky had discovered, was not the most pleasant experience in the world, and brought back frightful dark memories of steaming jungles and hot foreign cities, the gleam of the gun in his hands, blood and smoke and chaos. But walking down a Florida sidewalk in March, across a bridge lit by midday sunlight and crossed by the shadows of scudding clouds,  stiff sea-scented wind pushing bright white sailboats across the deep blue water below, made Bucky feel hard-won, happy openness right down to his core. He bounced a little as he walked, humming Dorsey under his breath, and he could practically feel Steve’s delight, shimmering like light on rippling water beside him.

            The Medici lions were just as beautiful as Bucky’s research had led him to believe. He checked the charge on his camera, inordinately pleased he had remembered to plug it in the night before – it would have been more believable if he'd forgotten the camera altogether – and took a dozen pictures, playing with the angle of the sun and the background, alternately blue sky and brilliant white bridge.

            He took close-ups of the lions' faces, fierce and protective and threatening, mulling half-heartedly over the confusing jumble of images that crowded at the corners of his mind of some unnamed handler mouthing off to his superiors: uniformed shoulders squared, jaw thrust out, eyes narrowed, spitting _Yemu nuzhno yest' chto-to_ while jerking his thumb at the Winter Soldier's face. The smell of urine and dirty water, grease beneath his fingernails, dazed with blood loss and hunger, a big meaty hand gripping him by his bicep, shaking him a little – not cruelly, but an urgent _straighten up, do you want to go back to the Chair?_ implied in the ungentle grasp.

            Bucky frowned, not wanting to poke the bear too hard, and wondered if it was altruism or practicality that had provoked the uncharacteristic dispensation. What little emotion he associated with the flashback was ambivalent at worst, so he concluded that particular handler had been one of the more reasonable of his masters.

            "Bucky."

            Steve's voice pulled him backwards out of the memory, spinning uncomfortably. He blinked, dizzy, and put a hand on the base of the southernmost lion's pedestal. His metal fingers gleamed in the mellow afternoon sunlight, splayed against the bright marble. Slowly the world righted itself, the fuzz that filled his ears receding, allowing him to hear passing pedestrians, traffic, the shriek of seagulls. "What," he said. His voice sounded far away.

            "You okay?"

            Bucky made a quick physical assessment. Feet planted firmly on the ground, heart beating steadily, breath even, blood sugar stable, balance maintained, pain within acceptable levels. "Yeah," he said. "I'm okay."

            He blinked the phosphenes away and let his metal hand drop. He looked down at his camera, whirring as it took picture after picture after picture, his index finger pressing hard on the shutter. He released it and reflected that it was a good thing deleting unwanted photos was so easy.

            "I just remembered something," he said uncertainly. "I think."

            He looked over at Steve. Steve stood oddly still, his blank face belying the slight panic in his blue eyes. "It wasn't bad," he added hastily. "It was – " He found he couldn't give the shard of memory a categorical rating, one way or another. "It was nothing," he concluded. Just the balance of bland protein paste against the constant gnawing of his gut, that was all. If the dispassionate handler had provided him with anything else, some tidbit calculated to ensure the Soldier's rudimentary loyalty, it was lost in the jumbled sinkhole of his mind.

            He glanced at Steve. Steve still had that deer-in-the-headlights expression on his face, which Bucky found hilarious. He laughed, and Steve looked annoyed. "I said it was nothing, punk," he assured him, clapping him on one massive shoulder. "C'mon, I wanna see that building across the street."

            "I'd call you an asshole," grumbled Steve, trailing after him, "but you just spaced out for thirty seconds and scared the shit out of me."

            "Sorry," said Bucky, not because he was, but because he knew his glib tone would irritate Steve. Sure enough, when he glanced back at him, Steve was scowling, hands shoved in his shorts pockets. Bucky grinned and took his picture.

            "Stop," complained Steve, shoving him by the shoulder, but Bucky recognized the petulant, half-amused, half-irritated cant to his voice, laughed again, and led Steve through the crosswalk to the square. “You’re sure you’re okay, though?” Steve added while Bucky took aim with his camera at the market building. He just couldn’t let things go, dammit.

            “I’m okay,” Bucky assured him, careful not to meet his eye. It wasn’t a complete lie. The flashback hadn’t triggered anything bad; the sun was shining; he knew his hunger could be assuaged by seafood and beer. If the lion-faced handler’s cold, assessing stare touched a raw spot in his brain, Steve didn’t need to know about that. “I promise,” he added with a grin.

            “Oh, well then,” shrugged Steve. “If you promise.”

            “I said I did, didn’t I?” Bucky took a couple of shots of the market. He needed to distract Steve. “What is this place, anyway?”

            Steve brightened and started a five-minute lecture about the central market place in Old St. Augustine while Bucky nodded inattentively, and filed the handler’s face away to think about later. Much later. Like, maybe never.

            He didn’t need to think about it. He was okay.

            He promised.


	4. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Happy Sunday, lovelies! Sheraiah and I have finally managed to pull our asses together and get this out to you. She will be here in less than a week. I. Cannot. Fucking. WAIT. So without further ado, we offer for your enjoyment humor, history, food, and angst, all wrapped up in four hundred dysfunctional and muscly pounds of supersoldier on the platter that is the incomparable city of St. Augustine. Bon appétit!

**4.**

 

            Steve's color-coded, multi-tab Excel spreadsheet had outlined their planned daily routines, from tourist spots to historical sites to prospective and highly-recommended eateries, but he hadn't set anything in particular aside for their arrival date, as he'd been uncertain about traffic, arrival times, and Bucky's potentially violent mood swings. Bucky was glad. He wanted time to evaluate the city on his own, try to determine what, if anything, the Winter Soldier might have done in this spot before. He'd been blindsided by memories of bloodshed in the most innocuous places, and had no desire to unhinge Steve's careful scheduling.

            So far, nothing except the marble lion's imperious and slightly condescending facial expression appeared to have done the trick. Tourists and locals strolled past them, shop windows displayed bright wares, the cathedral on the square shouldered importantly at surrounding buildings, flags snapped, and horse-drawn carriages clattered by, what Bucky assumed was the day-to-day visage of the city. His sporadic research had unearthed a handful of things he wanted to see and experience, and he knew from casting an ostensibly indifferent eye at Steve's spreadsheet that Steve had his own areas of interest outlined as well. But for now, in the mellow afternoon light, the absence of obligation and the press of familiar humanity loosened the perpetual knot in Bucky Barnes' stomach, and he almost felt like a person again.

            He had found, ever since unwrapping the little digital camera, that he greatly preferred to take pictures of things and not people. People posed, or complained, or demanded copies. But things simply _were_ , and did not exert on the picture-taker any obligation to respond. So as they walked up Cathedral Place, afternoon traffic jostling between them and the green, bemarbled quadrangle, Bucky took pictures of bas relief stone, of pigeons, of the clouds scudding past the cathedral tower, of the trees in front of the Government House.

            He crossed the street, intent on snapping a shot of the Spanish flags hung from the balconies, bright against the live oaks strewn with moss. Steve trailed behind, hands in his pockets, an absent smile on that stupidly handsome face, heedless of the appreciative glances and white-knuckle whispers as he passed. Bucky supposed he could advise Steve that he'd get less attention if he wore tee shirts that didn't hug his body so tight, but then he'd miss out on Steve's blush when he caught a girl – or guy – staring.

            It didn't matter how much time had passed, or what had happened to him in the interim. Teasing Steve would always be Bucky's go-to.

            He crouched down by the edge of a brick store front, on King Street, trying to focus on a strange little sunken medallion in the façade. He knew someone was looking at him. He could practically feel it on his skin, crinkly and invasive, but he was confident that Steve had his back, and wouldn’t let anyone harass him. He cautiously dismissed it as a stranger's unfamiliarity with metal appendages.

            He muttered discontentedly to himself. The lighting was poor, and he didn't want to use the flash, but he really fucking wanted a shot of this little doo-dad tucked beneath the old stone. He knew Steve was standing nearby, thoughtfully out of the light, and ignored his friend's low chuckle until after he'd managed to capture at least a little essence of the medallion. He scowled up through his shaggy hair. "What?" he demanded.

            "Nothing," said Steve airily. "Just some girls checking out your ass."

            His gut clenched reflexively. The Winter Soldier's good looks had seldom played in his favor. That particular shadow of memory had to be shoved into a dark corner, fast. He frantically reminded himself that a couple of random girls' libidos on a Florida street posed him no threat, and forced a smile. "Well, they must like lookin' at antiques," he elected, his voice deceptively flippant, rising smoothly to his feet. Unless they were heavily armed, or had substantial backup, two girls were unlikely to cause him significant harm.

            Steve grinned. "No pursuit?" he asked easily.

            "Nah," shrugged Bucky. "I'm here with you, right? I can go trolling any ol' time."

            Steve's shoulders relaxed a hair; Bucky must've said something right. Wonders never ceased. "So apparently there's a wax museum around here somewhere," said Steve, looking up the light-dappled street.

            "Yeugh," shuddered Bucky. "Creepy-ass places. Like the fuckin' Hall of Presidents, god."

            "I think the Jimmy Carter one was the worst," agreed Steve. He pivoted, eyes tracking casually, then paused, head cocked.

            "What?" asked Bucky cautiously, stuffing the camera in his front pocket. Steve didn’t LOOK nervous, but …

            "Hm," said Steve, and strolled over to brightly lit plate glass under an art gallery sign. "You mind?" he asked over his shoulder.

            "No," said Bucky, relieved. Of course he didn't mind Steve taking an interest in something that didn't involve Bucky's brain or Bucky's arm or Bucky's mental health or Bucky's past or Bucky's future. His secret mission was to keep Steve away from the broken, filthy parts of his psyche as much as possible; make him believe there was a chance at restoration. Basically anything that caught Steve's eye that had nothing to do with Bucky was a winning scenario in his book.

            He followed Steve to the gallery window and looked at the artwork. Paintings, sculptures, figurines, some weird-looking stiff cloth things suspended on hangers that looked more like bedsheets dug up under a house than artwork. Bucky didn't know nearly as much about art as Steve, but was familiar enough with his best friend's knowledge that he could look without becoming bored for, oh, about twenty minutes. Thirty, if there were relatively realistic pictures of naked girls.

            There were no naked girls in this art gallery window, however. Vivid paintings, splashes of scarlet and ochre and yellow; glass cut and polished, throwing rainbows around the pedestals; jagged figurines of dancers and animals, as though trapped mid-movement in stone.

            Bucky stood and let his mind wander while Steve looked, going from window to window. The sun was setting, and a breeze had started up, cool and deliciously fragrant with the scents of grilled food and salt water and stone. People walked by dressed for dinner; somewhere down the street, a photographer was taking pictures of a wedding party, the bride in a gleaming white dress like one of the marble figures Steve was currently admiring. She and her blue-clad bridesmaids were laughing and holding colorful bouquets. He could hear church bells somewhere, muffled and distant, and the clop of heavy horse hooves on the pavement. The familiar cacophony of a restaurant and bar district picked up. Humming behind it all was the solid, immovable serenity of a centuries-old city, standing on the blood and bones of its settlers, the soldiers who died on its sands, the victims of disease and war, the courageous folly of millions of souls determined to say, _I live here._

            It had been many years since Bucky had been in a city older than the country of his birth, and many more since he'd been able to stand, feet planted, and absorb the feel of great age and the solemnity that accompanied it. It was comforting, knowing that this strange, warm city, its crowded streets and the smell of manure and fried oysters, predated Hydra and the KGB and the Winter Soldier's depredations, and would exist long after everything else had faded away – SHIELD, the WSC, Sarasota itself – cobblestones to gravestones, himself barely a dark, blood-soaked speck in the turning wheel of its existence. He closed his eyes, for once uncaring of who or what was at his back, and let his noisy mind rest a moment, the slight loosening of a rubber band pulled to fraying-point.

            Something clicked beside him, and he opened his eyes. Steve had snapped a picture of a statue with his phone, and was thumbing a text message to someone. The phone was angled just right so that Bucky could just see the string of letters beneath a thumbnail of a statuette. Steve pushed send, and the phone trilled in acknowledgement.

            Bucky looked at the statuette. It was of two children standing together, siblings perhaps, one with his arms crossed, the other with an arm slung over the shorter one's shoulders. It was a charming little piece, sketchy cut metal with highly polished edges; you could see the stoicism in the younger boy's face, the bright grin on the elder's. There was a breathtaking price tag beneath it, and it rotated slowly on its luminous pedestal, showcasing what even Bucky could tell was detailed artistry, down to the folds of cloth in their shirts and the dimple in the smaller boy's cheek.

            Bucky glanced at Steve. His eyes were soft, like they usually got when he was talking to an attractive woman. The flick of suspicion in Bucky's breast swelled into a certainty.

            "You schmoozing one of the artists at the Ringling?" he drawled.

            Steve started, pupils dilating a little, and he huffed a laugh. "Maybe?" he admitted, his cheeks going pink. "Yeah."

            "Yeah?" Bucky grinned. "What's this artist's name?"

            Steve set his jaw and tucked his phone back into his pocket. "None of your damn business," he said, equably enough.

            "Huh," said Bucky, watching him with hooded eyes, still grinning. Steve gave the statuette one last longing look, then turned abruptly away from the window, heading back down King Street to Charlotte. Bucky swung along beside him, pleased. "Does Miss None of Your Damn Business have a pretty face to go along with her great artistic talent?" he asked casually.

            "Yes," said Steve shortly, breathing out abruptly through his nose.

            Bucky could take a hint, despite evidence to the contrary. "Good," he said. He let Steve snort along for another few moments, then said, "Hey, can we eat at Harry's? Amelie says the bathroom's haunted."

            Caught off-guard, Steve laughed. "Yeah, sure," he said, crinkling his eyes at Bucky. "You wanna go ghost-hunting?"

            Bucky thought about it for a moment. "Nah," he concluded. "Think our latent Catholicism would rise up in protest, or something."

            "Probably," Steve agreed, and led Bucky down Charlotte to Harry's for an early dinner.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Much to Bucky’s disappointment, there was no evidence of a ghost in the Harry’s men’s room. While Steve chatted with the waitress about going on a late-night walking tour, Bucky sent an indignant text to Amelie about the dearth of restroom hauntings. After a moment she replied, _no sweetie the ladies room not the mens,_ and Steve had to physically restrain Bucky from sailing into the restaurant women’s bathroom demanding any spooks to show themselves.

            The walking tour had enough history to interest Steve, and enough bloodshed to fascinate Bucky, and they wound it up with a couple of beers at an Irish pub on Avenida Menendez.

            “ _Sláinte,_ ” they said to each other in unison, and clinked their glasses together. It was after midnight, and the lights along A1A reflected back, undulating and eerie, on the black waters of Matanzas. It was chilly, even for the end of March, and they were both glad to have their sweatshirts as they walked across the bridge to their hotel, Steve’s telling the world he had been in the Army, Bucky’s advertising a Sarasota donut shop.

            As they prepared for bed, jostling for toothbrush space in front of the tiny sink, Steve realized with a moment of panic that this would be the first time they’d slept in the same room in eighteen months. He knew he sometimes had nightmares that woke him with half-strangled cries in his throat, but didn’t want Bucky to know that – his priority was to get Bucky better, not to have Bucky worry that Steve wasn’t one hundred percent.

            He watched Bucky rinse and spit, give a low growly belch, and shuffle towards the bed he’d claimed by the window, scratching his ass and yawning. It would be different than staying in the Lido Motel – Bucky had only slept a few hours at a time back then, and Steve was too apprehensive about Bucky being a flight risk that his best friend’s fragile presence did not allow him to drift off at all.

            Weirdly enough, this would be the first time they had slept properly in a room together since the War. Steve thought about mentioning it, but his brain backed out immediately. There was no way in hell he was opening that can of worms this late at night. And Bucky still wasn’t … quite right. Not yet.

            He’d bring it up later. Maybe.

            They climbed under the stiff and ugly polyester bedspreads, stretched on surprisingly soft white sheets, and Bucky fell asleep so quickly Steve was fondly and painfully reminded of Sgt. Barnes, battered and exhausted, sprawled on a cot in his shorts and undershirt, snoring lightly while Steve struggled through the obligatory command paperwork while mortar fire rumbled like thunder in the distance. He crushed those thoughts back painfully. As much as people tended to romanticize the camaraderie and heroism of the War, it had been a three sixty-five, twenty-four/seven shitshow killing Nazis, and Steve was glad it was over.

            He drifted off, thinking instead of blonde-and-green-eyes, and the appreciative text she’d sent in response to the picture of the sculpture in the window.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Steve gurgled himself awake, thrashing a little, and threw off his covers, his mind scrambling to remember where he was in the unfamiliar darkness. He had dreamt horribly of blood and gunfire and screaming children, his subconscious throwing him back into the familiar and hateful certainty he could never do enough, never save enough people. He fought down a whimper and forced his breathing to slow, not wanting to wake Bucky.

            Bucky’s bed was empty.

            Steve’s heart constricted again, tighter this time, and the rational part of his brain that was just struggling awake reminded him that Bucky was unlikely to run off, and to think about this rationally, dammit, and not go off half-cocked. Then he smelled the familiar harsh-sweet smell of the tobacco Bucky used in his hand-rolled cigarettes, and realized he’d woken himself up in the middle of a smoke break.

            He lay back down, willing his pounding heart to slow. It was okay. They were okay. Everything was going to be fine.

            He knew he couldn’t fake-sleep well enough to fool Bucky – he never could – so he waited until the hotel room door creaked open and he felt rather than heard his friend move past his bed, a ghostly, silent black shadow. In the breath of air he stirred lingered the remnants of cigarette smoke. Steve’s heart unclenched a little, like it always did when he knew exactly where Bucky was.

            “You stink,” he said to the darkness.

            “Shut up,” the darkness responded equably, and climbed into bed. Steve lay awake for a while before drifting off again.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Steve’s phone buzzed him awake at five in the morning. He shut it off with a grunt. He was on vacation, dammit. There was no reason to get up before dawn. Especially since he’d slept poorly, his dreams edged with fire and smoke. He rolled over, pulled the shitty motel bedspread over his shoulders, and fell back asleep.

           

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

An earthquake jolted him awake, seven point five at least, so violent he could feel his entire body bouncing up off the thin mattress. He flailed with his arms, trying to find purchase, blinking in the dim hotel room light. One hand connected with a leg, which sprang away; then the bed lurched and vaulted, creaking alarmingly.

            “Get – up – punk!” yelled Bucky as he jumped, his not inconsiderable weight sending the poor motel bed juddering. “It’s – eight – o’clock – and I want – breakfast!”

            “Jesus Christ!” squawked Steve, taking a swipe at Bucky’s legs, but Bucky just laughed and launched himself off the bed, landing on the floor with a loud thump. Steve hoped whoever had the room below them was an early riser. “What the fuck – “

            “Dibs on the shower,” grinned Bucky, and ducked Steve’s pillow. He slammed the bathroom door behind himself with a laugh.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            The free coffee in the hotel office was so bad even Bucky wouldn’t drink it. A Bucky without his morning coffee was a grumpy and ill-tempered Bucky, so Steve promised, after they dumped the offending brown water into a nearby palmetto bush, that they would find some potable caffeine as soon as possible.

            As they strolled down the sidewalk to the bridge, the day bright and breezy around them, Bucky glared down at his phone, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He was determined to find coffee and breakfast, and snarled impatiently every time Steve suggested McDonald’s. Steve knew Bucky hated McDonald’s, but sometimes it was fun to poke the bear a little. Bucky would have died horribly before admitting he was an epicurean.

            Steve had been texting blonde-and-green-eyes all morning, painfully conscious of Bucky’s side-eye every time he picked up his phone, and was determined to keep the offending piece of equipment in his pocket to prevent any catastrophes, like Bucky snatching the phone away and sending a rude text message, which was probable. So instead, Steve admired the view from the top of the bridge’s bascule, the main square of the old city laid out before them like a worn and shabby precious jewel. The sun glanced off the high tower of the cathedral, and slanted with blue shadows across the old buildings. Trees were emerald green, shimmering in the breeze, and the smells of dirt and salt water and stone were all around them. He needed to come back, next time with a sketchbook and ink and watercolors – photos wouldn’t do St. Augustine justice. A city this old and stately demanded consonant media.

            “Burger Buckets,” said Bucky suddenly.

            Steve’s brain skidded to a halt. “What?”

            “Breakfast. Coffee,” said Bucky around his cigarette. It was almost smoked out and stuck smoldering to his lower lip. “Place is called Burger Buckets. Review says great omelets.”

            “And coffee?” prodded Steve.

            “Free refills,” said Bucky, looking a lot less growly. Steve didn’t know why coffee was so important to Bucky – like nicotine and alcohol, his enhanced metabolism burned right through it. Sam said it was psychological. Clint said he was just pigheaded. They were both probably right.

            “Where?” asked Steve. He didn’t pull out his phone, knowing the urge to text would be too great. She was busy – Steve needed to stop bugging her. She was probably finding it annoying, anyway. He was becoming that guy who wouldn’t let her be. That was awkward. With all the methods of communication these days, IM’s and emails and blogs and text messaging, Steve didn’t have a feel for when interest became intrusive. He wished he was better at this.

            He could ask Bucky, but … would Bucky know? He’d always been better at dating than Steve – having more opportunities had certainly helped, and Bucky possessed this easy, warm nature that naturally attracted girls – but it wasn’t like Bucky had had many opportunities to flex his flirt muscles while being used as a terrifying assassin glower monster by Hydra. Steve decided to ask Sam, instead. Sam would tease him, but at least he’d get a straight answer. God only knew what Bucky would come up with.

            He waited while Bucky pulled up the map. “That way,” said Bucky, pointing straight ahead toward Cathedral Place; his metal arm flashed in the sunlight. “Then right on … Cordova.”

            “Lead on, Chekov,” grinned Steve.

            Bucky stubbed out his cigarette on his metal palm, chucking it into a nearby trash can. “Sure thing, Mr. Sulu,” he grunted.

            It was a weekday, and the streets were nearly empty save for the occasional blue-collar worker or well-dressed shop assistant. “Probl’ly all hung over,” grinned Bucky when Steve commented on how quiet it was.

            “Don’t miss that,” said Steve, and Bucky snorted in agreement.

            They paused in front of Flagler College to admire the building, stately and red-brown, with its crenellated façade and the big, bulbous stained glass windows at the dining hall. While Bucky took pictures, Steve watched the students filtering in and out, clad in sweats and carrying backpacks and coffee. Most of them were chatting happily together, talking about lacrosse, or grades, or this or that professor’s likelihood of surprising them with a pop quiz. Steve felt a swell of nostalgia, his restless mind seeking new things. He could go back to college, get a bachelor’s. It wasn’t unthinkable, not anymore. The world was his oyster – albeit a constricted and heavily scrutinized oyster – and it wasn’t too late to finish that art degree. And maybe Bucky would want to go back, exercise his brain, do something different.

            The image of Bucky, shaggy-haired and metal-armed, slouching and glaring in a college classroom filled with teenagers, gave him pause. He mentally inserted himself next to him, all big limbs and awkward silences making the desk look tiny, and grimaced. Maybe online classes would be preferable.

            They passed two breakfast places, open and displaying placards with their menus, on their way down Cordova, but Bucky was a man on a mission and refused to stop. When they found Burger Buckets and stepped inside, Steve’s vague resentment faded: this was the St. Augustine equivalent of a New York diner open for breakfast. He could smell bacon, toast, coffee, and high cholesterol, and he felt a swell of happiness at the look of satisfaction on Bucky’s face.

            “Finally,” breathed Bucky, and grinned at the waitress as she came up to seat them.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Between them, they polished off two three-egg omelets, two sides of bacon, an order each of French toast and buttermilk pancakes, and two pots of coffee. The waitress, a young and painfully soft-voiced Flagler student working her way through school, goggled appreciatively at Steve and stammered her way through answering his question about the advertisement for something called the Red Train. Bucky, his belly full of fat and carbohydrates, stretched comfortably out on his side of the booth and gazed out the window, letting his mind wander as Steve, blind to the girl’s enthrallment, unfolded his spreadsheet and pointed to the day’s schedule.

            Bucky smiled to himself and sipped his cup of coffee – his tenth, he thought, nice and bitter with a slick of oil across the top. He allowed himself to stare out the window without calculating the force necessary to burst through the plate glass, or determining what caliber bullet would be best for assassinating the passing cyclists, and gazed thoughtlessly at the berm of sand and scrub, the tourists with their ball caps and cameras, the building across the tiny parking lot that advertised hamburgers and rooms for rent. There were twelve adults and five children in the dining area, two waitresses, and two line cooks; the building had three exits and high visibility and would be completely indefensible in case of attack. But it didn’t bother him, because he was full and warm and sitting across from Steve who had given every indication of being a little bit in love with someone, and they were in an old, old city with things to look at and food to eat and girls to watch.

            “It’s very convenient,” the waitress was saying, leaning a little too close to Steve to show him the pamphlet. “You pay for one day, three days, or five days, and you can pick it up anywhere and it will drop you anywhere, and it runs until five o’clock. The drivers give you a tour of the city and everything. History and stuff. They’re very knowledgeable. Smokey is my favorite, so try and get on Smokey’s train.”

            Bucky absently picked up his butter knife and twirled it between his left fingers. Dog – there was a woman walking a dog – an older lady, big white sun hat, little Yorkie in a pink harness. It trotted along, springy like most small terriers, fluffy and tiny with big brown eyes. Bucky wanted to pet it. He wondered if he ran outside, if he could catch her up and ask if he could pet her dog.

            “Complimentary parking right out front,” the waitress continued, and pointed past Bucky, then stammered to a halt.

            Bucky’s attention jerked, and he snapped his head around, perception funneling through the diner noise and the smell of bacon. She was staring down at his hand, his metal hand, dammit, flipping the damn knife around, the metal plates of his bicep shifting and whirring. His fist closed around the handle with an ominous clink and he felt his whole body tense. He heard the waitress gulp. Her pupils had dilated, and her nice pink cheeks were drained of color. Her eyes were fixed on the metal arm, and the edge of his red star, peeping beneath the tee shirt sleeve.

            Fuck the Winter Soldier – fuck him, fuck him, fuck him; he always was showing up just when Bucky thought he was gone, ruining everything and dragging him down, dragging Steve down too.      

            Steve flicked his gaze between the two, blue eyes glittering, and he slowly, deliberately reached out one big hand and closed it around Bucky’s. “Buck,” he said, his voice very calm and casual. “Put the knife down. You’re getting syrup everywhere.”

            It cut through the sudden high whine in Bucky’s head, took his tripping heart and pushed it down, back into his chest, beating strong and steady. Steve’s hand was very warm and gentle. Flesh fingers wormed smoothly between metal ones, took the sticky knife, slid it out and put it, slow and deliberate, onto the Formica table top. Bucky’s metal hand stretched open, balled into a fist, then opened again. It hummed, much like the bleary white light that fuzzed and burred in Bucky’s eyes, and he desperately wanted to punch something.

            Steve’s voice, low and warm and kind: “He’s always making a mess. Sorry about that. But yeah, the Red Train sounds like a great idea. I’ll be sure to grab us a couple of tickets after we get out of your hair.”

            The pulse of panic receded, and Bucky looked up at the waitress. She was still staring, eyes round, pink lips in an O. Her gaze went from Bucky’s arm to his eyes, and Bucky tried very hard to project _I’m really not that dangerous I promise I won’t even kill you, please don’t be afraid of me_ into his gaze. Slowly, her mouth closed and her eyes cleared; she nodded and said, her voice bright but wobbly:

            “That’s great. I’ll just get you guys your check.” And she hustled to the kitchen, their dishes clattering in her hands.

            “Shit,” muttered Bucky. “Shit, shit, shit.”

            “It’s okay,” Steve soothed, leaning across the table, his eyes intense. “Buck. Bucky, look at me. Look.”

            Reluctantly, Bucky met his eye. Steve looked so fucking _earnest_ , damn him, like a big Kermit the Frog trying to keep his show from going to hell. Bucky would not let that happen. Steve tried so hard, wanted the best for Bucky. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that his best friend was an internationally wanted serial murderer with a metal arm. Steve didn’t sign up for this shit. He deserved better.

            So Bucky set his jaw and unclenched his fist and let his mouth slide into a grin. “Think she recognized me?” he asked, forcing his voice to sound amused. “Think she knows who I am. Doesn’t matter, though, right? She sure liked lookin’ at _you_ , pal.”

            Steve’s eyes flickered, uncertain, and his jaw relaxed. “She’s gotta be, what, eighteen?” he said with a chuckle. “Get your dirty mind out of the gutter, Barnes.”

            “Hey, I ain’t the one who’s been sexting an artist all morning,” Bucky retorted. The tactic worked; Steve turned red and sat back.

            “We’re not _sexting_ ,” he said, his blush creeping down his neck. “I was just, um, telling her about our trip.”

            “Uh-huh,” said Bucky. He pulled out his wallet and plastic baggie. “Gonna go smoke. Grab me when you’re done.” He slid out of the booth and threw a twenty on the sticky Formica.

            “I’m getting us train tickets,” Steve called to his back as he opened the door. “Other side of the building.”

            Bucky just gave him a thumbs-up, and slipped around the corner of the diner, his flesh hand shaking as he dug out a rolling paper. The lady with the Yorkie was gone. Probably just as well. She’d have taken one look at him and refused to let him even touch her little dog. Bucky couldn’t blame her.

            Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ the Winter Soldier. The sun was shining and the bay was bright blue and the city smelled like dirt and stone, and Steve wanted to take him to a winery and a distillery, and goddammit all to hell, the crazy, deadly motherfucking Winter Soldier wouldn’t fucking leave them _alone._ All Bucky wanted was to be ordinary. Why couldn’t he just be ordinary, dammit? Why did he have to have this fucked-up brain and scrambled memory and goddamn metal arm?

            He rolled a cigarette, sparked it up, and leaned in the shade at the corner of the building, smoking and glaring at passers-by, who, to his annoyance, completely ignored his bad mood and tattered jeans and cheerlessness and went on with their days, talking on cellphones and carrying souvenir bags and looking at street maps. A young couple walked by with a big yellow Labrador, and Bucky suddenly felt sad. He wanted to pet the Labrador, but he was pretty sure he’d just scare the dog’s owners, like he’d scared the waitress in the diner. Then the dog stopped to sniff something, and he realized with a jolt it only had three legs – its left rear was just a stump. It responded to its owner’s tug on the lead and loped on, its long doggy face happy and careless.

            Bucky’s phone buzzed, and he dug it out of his jeans pocket and thumbed it open. He had a text message from Clint. He angled the screen into the shadow, and opened the attachment.

            Tinny children’s voices, the little images of Cooper, Lila, and Baby Nate standing on the Bartons’ front porch, all wearing birthday hats and holding sparklers. “Happy birthday, Uncle Bucky!” they chorused, and Cooper and Lila waved. Baby Nate threw both arms in the air and yelled, “YEEAAAHHH!” and Bucky could hear Laura laugh behind the camera.

            Bucky gave a breathy chuckle and looked up. There was another young couple walking past, this time with a stroller and a toddler. The baby in the stroller was crying, and they paused to let the father pick him up and cuddle him close. The mother took the toddler’s hand and he heard her say, “Come on! Let’s go to the merry-go-round!”

            Bucky watched the three-legged dog and the family pass by. A wave of regret overwhelmed him, and he let the cigarette drop smoldering to the ground. He didn’t always remember things, but he remembered wanting kids. He remembered wanting to get married and have a family and a dog and a life. He knew he couldn’t, now; it was a fact, something he had been forced to accept. But he couldn’t help wondering about that old Bucky Barnes, the one who had laughed and worked and hoped and dreamed, and if that man would have felt as sad about Bucky’s current life as Bucky did.


	5. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N: Happy Yule! My apologies for how long this has taken. The Holidays really punched us in the gut this year.
> 
> Trigger warnings for suicidal ideation and thoughts and memories of self-harm.)

**5.**

 

 

            There were several ways this could play out.

            Bucky could get angry. It was frighteningly easy for Bucky to get angry nowadays. The famed “Black Irish temper” his mother had warned him about in 1930 had been exacerbated by time, torture, and death, and it took little to set Bucky off. In those circumstances, Steve had found it prudent to simply remove Bucky from the public eye and let him rage alone. If several shrubs and a few garbage cans got caught in the crossfire, well, so be it. Theirs was a noble sacrifice.

            Or Bucky could get morose. That was also a standard response. He could duck down, crouch, hide, give monosyllabic answers to queries and simply glare at the people surrounding him. This was a less frightening response, but no less disruptive, as it also tended to put a halt to whatever Steve happened to be doing at the moment. Feelings and schedules took the place of shrubs and cans – no less damaged, and harder to repair.

            Or … Bucky could ignore it, and pretend nothing happened.

            Steve knew it was not a healthy response. Feigning normalcy only took Bucky so far – the feelings were still _there_ ; he just refused to deal with them. Sam and Clint had warned Steve over and over about this. But how many times could Steve say, “Bucky, it’s okay to feel that way” while his best friend sneered and called him Captain Psychiatrist? It wasn’t so bad if they were at home and could snipe and growl at each other across the patio while they worked out Bucky’s fragile pig-headedness, but dealing with an aggressive, angrily grinning Winter Soldier in public was sometimes scarier than a complete meltdown. It usually lasted longer than lost temper or shutting down, but Steve still couldn’t help hoping, selfishly, that this is what Bucky would do. It would allow them to go through the motions, tick off the check-marks on Steve’s Excel spreadsheet, and give Bucky time to settle down a bit.

            So Steve was tentatively relieved when Bucky picked what was behind curtain number three, and simply sauntered into the gift shop behind Burger Buckets, looking around calmly, hands jammed into his board short pockets.

            Steve eyed him cautiously while purchasing the Red Train tickets from the pleasant-faced older lady behind the counter. He half-listened as she explained the stickers and the stops and how nice it was that it wasn’t crowded but that of course meant there were fewer trains and longer waits, and watched Bucky poke around the cheap plastic toys and souvenirs, and frown thoughtfully at one of the innumerable penny-squashing machines that seemed to pepper all of the state of Florida. What Floridians had against the U.S. penny, Steve had no idea, but it seemed like there was a penny-squashing machine every twenty feet.

            Steve thanked the woman and took their stickers. “Here,” he said, holding his breath as he handed it to Bucky. Bucky only raised an eyebrow at it, and watched Steve put the sticker on his shirt. “We gotta wear these if we want to ride the Red Train.”

            “Cute,” grunted Bucky. He had picked up a garish green sweatshirt with the Burger Buckets logo on it. “Gimme a sec.”

            Steve waited while Bucky purchased the sweatshirt, smiling as Bucky flirted outrageously with the lady behind the counter. He reduced the poor woman to blushes and giggles, kissed her hand good-bye, and strode purposefully toward the shop exit, pulling the sweatshirt over his head. It was going to be in the eighties, and the sun had already heated the streets and corners, but Steve said nothing, especially when, after scooting across the seats in the tram, he watched Bucky poke a hole in the left cuff for his thumb.

            So that was how he was playing it.

            Steve stayed mum, careful to not question Bucky’s change of attire, and devoted the front part of his brain to enjoying the lovely sunny morning, the bright reflections off shop windows and Matanzas, and the joke-sprinkled commentary by the tram driver. Most of the information he already knew from his research, but it was always fun to hear someone else’s take on the history of so old and venerable a city.

            The back part of his brain continued to worry. But this was so normal for him that he barely even noticed. It would be fine. It _was_ fine. Everything was okay. Bucky was okay.

            Really.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            They ended up making a complete circuit of the city on the Red Train, both too fascinated with their driver’s tour and the strange sights that they agreed to catch the winery on the second loop. Bucky struck up a friendship with a baby sitting in front of them, staring over her mother’s shoulder with big hazel eyes, bald pate topped with a pink sun hat. They goggled and waved and giggled at each other, both Steve and the baby’s family smiling indulgently, until they bid an enthusiastic farewell at the pirate museum. Bucky glowered at the sign.

            “Need to bring the Barton kids here,” he said thoughtfully.

            Steve made a face. He didn’t mind a solo Lila, but Cooper and Baby Nate could be a handful to wrangle as a duo. And somehow, Bucky managed all three just fine, juggling the Barton kids’ contentment with the ease of a plate-spinner at a county fair. He made it look so easy, even when Cooper got petulant and Lila got demanding and Baby Nate threw a tantrum. “Only if we got backup,” he said firmly.

            Bucky gave a tight grin. “Pansy,” he said.

            It turned out to be a good thing that there was a restaurant at the winery. All Bucky had had to eat after breakfast was a double scoop of ice cream, and after building up a hearty appetite tasting and purchasing wines, he declared he would boycott the distillery until he had a goddamn sandwich. So they lugged their bottles to the upstairs restaurant and sat outside, watching the seagulls and trucks below, and demolished three appetizer platters, two sandwiches, and a pitcher of beer.

            While Bucky leaned over the rail and snapped pictures of the boats on the river, Steve checked his phone. Blonde-and-green-eyes had texted him twice, snapshots showing the progress of her latest piece. It was promising to be spectacular, and Steve was tapping an appreciative response when he heard Bucky’s voice, pitched lower, slower than usual, and he looked up, alert.

            Two frat-holes in popped collars and backwards ball caps faced off with him, foolishly supposing they were a match for Bucky Barnes. Steve could have saved them the trouble and told them that they hadn’t a snowball’s chance, especially when Bucky was already on edge. As Steve rose to his feet, he spotted the subject of the dispute: a girl’s forgotten purse, dangling from one of the douchebag’s hands, already open, the wallet flipped negligently between fingers that didn’t look like they’d seen an honest day’s work in their lives. Bucky’s right hand was out, reaching for the purse, and his gray eyes flashed angrily.

            Under different circumstances, Steve would have simply let Bucky have his head and deal with the idiots alone. There was no sense making Bucky think Steve didn’t trust him to handle himself, and that Black Irish temper did spoil for a good fight. Better two entitled dickheads than Steve, after all.

            But this was a nice restaurant, and the waiter was hovering nervously, and Steve was on vacation, dammit, and explaining to Maria Hill that he’d let the Winter Soldier beat up two civilians was not how he’d wanted to spend his afternoon. Besides, the balcony wall was a mere four feet from Frat-Hole #1’s feet, and Steve knew that Bucky would consider the two-story drop more expedient than a cracked knuckle. He pocketed his phone, pushed his chair back, and rose to his feet in time to hear Frat-Hole #2 say, with brilliant originality, “Yeah? You and what army?”

            “You think I need an army, pal?” growled Bucky. He feinted with his left hand, and when #1 tried to swing the little purse away, Bucky snatched it with his right, scooping up the wallet and a stray tampon in the process.

            “Gimme!” snapped Frat-Hole #1, and reared back to take a swing at Bucky.

            Steve knew how that would turn out. “Hey!” he said, and Frat-Hole #1 paused with a sneer.

            “Mind your own goddamn business,” he said.

            Steve raised his eyebrows at Bucky, who had tucked the wallet and tampon back in the little purse. Bucky flicked one eyelid – the barest wink – and Steve collared Frat-Hole #2 while his compatriot went down like a panicked squirrel on the floor, tangled in the cast-iron chair. Steve tightened his grip on Frat-Hole #2, who was cursing, and lifted the boy up off the ground. He gurgled, eyes rolling at Steve in surprise.

            “Look, son,” said Steve patiently. “Do you really want to get into it with a decorated Army veteran? Because if you do, I’ll just step back and let my friend take you two apart piece by piece, and help the busboy sweep up your teeth afterwards.”

            Frat-Hole #2 smelled like a lot of whiskey and ketchup. Steve guessed they had hit the distillery first. He didn’t reply, probably because Steve’s hand had twisted his collar enough to cut off his hair supply, and he hung, wriggling and gasping, a good foot off the floor.

            Steve glanced down at Frat-Hole #1, who was scrambling amongst the discarded French fries and table legs at Bucky’s feet. He appeared to be having some trouble getting up, whether because he, like his compatriot, had over-indulged, or because Bucky’s boot was planted squarely in the center of his chest, Steve couldn’t really tell. “So here’s what we’re going to do,” Steve said. “You two are going to tab out and scram, and Sarge and I are going to hand this purse over to the waitstaff so the owner can get it back intact. Got it?”

            By this point, the remaining diners had figured out that something was happening. They craned their necks, eyes wide and interested. Steve didn’t see any cell phones taking pictures or video yet, which meant he’d have to wrap this up quickly. Last thing he wanted was a phone call right now, asking what the hell they were doing.

            “Get offa me,” whined Frat-Hole #1. Steve didn’t see any blood, which was comforting. “It was just a joke, man.”

            “You got a funny idea what’s a joke, asshole,” grunted Bucky, lifting his boot and stepping back. “Get up. Get outa here. Waste of fuckin’ oxygen.”

            Steve lowered Frat-Hole #2 to the ground. He spun away from Steve, red-faced and flustered. “I should call the cops!” he said petulantly.

            “You should,” agreed Steve, equable and calm. “You can explain to them why your fingerprints are all over some girl’s wallet.”

            The two Frat-Holes scrambled back from Steve and Bucky, and one of them threw a couple of twenties on their table. “Fuckin’ assholes!” Frat-Hole #2 yelled, and they beat a hasty retreat.

            There was a smattering of applause from the other tables, which only seemed to incense them more; Steve could hear them banging and yelling down the stairs as they left. He quirked a grin at Bucky, who was standing, chin up, his eyes still a little wild. “You just love looking for trouble, don’t you?” he asked with a grin.

            “Look who’s talkin’,” said Bucky. He was a little breathless, even though Steve was sure he hadn’t expended any energy. Steve didn’t like the manic light in his eye, and wondered if he’d done right to keep Bucky from a fight. Sometimes he needed to blow off steam. But Steve never knew who was throwing the punch – Sergeant Barnes with his right fist, or the Winter Soldier with his left – and it was prudent to keep damage to a minimum. Steve knew oh so well how that left fist felt.

            He accepted the waiter’s thanks and paid their bill, then collected bottles and Barnes and headed downstairs. “Distillery?” he asked hopefully. He really didn’t want this little incident to throw a monkey wrench into their trip.

            Bucky gave Steve an assessing look, almost as though it had been Steve picking the fight, and not him. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. “Sure, why not?” He turned away before Steve could decide if he was being humored.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Bucky was humming.

            Not just his arm, this time. His whole body – limbs, heart, head, brain – was buzzing like a chainsaw. He could feel it behind his eyes, in his ears, quivering down to his fingertips. Everything was wound like a top, stretched tight and fraying. When he stepped, the soles of his feet didn’t hit the ground; they were buoyed by static, cushioning his strides. The air was full of prickles and bees against his skin.

            Distillery, chocolate factory, train, Steve by his side, solid and dependable despite the stress. How did he do it? How did he present that bland, smiling façade to the world when Bucky knew he barely slept, choked by nightmares of bad ops and blood? How did he stay so calm? No one would ever guess Steve Rogers was a fucking mess, him with his perfect hair and shaved chin and clean house and ironed slacks. But Bucky knew.

            Bucky also knew he had no right to talk. If Steve was a mess, Bucky was a goddamn train wreck. Those two fucking frat-boy assholes, lifting a girl’s purse and digging into it, a violation of privacy, laughing sneering faces, as though they were entitled to hurt and humiliate. Bucky hated men like that. Hated them. They needed to be stopped. To be – not killed – Bucky didn’t do that anymore – or hurt – did hurting a hurter make it square? No, no – Bucky needed to stop thinking like that. Steve was talking.

            “Better take these bottles back to the motel,” he said. They had bought a lot of booze. Bucky smiled. Booze didn’t take the edge off anymore, but it sure felt fun.

            “Sure, yeah,” he said. His voice was surprisingly smooth. He didn’t think Steve could hear Bucky’s brain vibrating. Steve looked calm and happy, not worried like he did when he knew Bucky was losing his damn mind. Not that Bucky was losing it. He wasn’t. He was just – just keyed up, upset by those two jerks at the restaurant. He needed to burn it off, somehow. But not now; not with Steve watching. It would worry Steve, seeing Bucky brittle and uncontrolled. Steve tried so hard to make life easier for Bucky, easy to navigate so Bucky wouldn’t lose it. Not Steve’s fault the world was full of assholes hell-bent on getting Bucky angry. Not Steve’s fault.

            If only he could just _breathe._

            The walk to the motel helped. The sun was still bright, even though evening was approaching. Bucky wanted to run. Knowing he couldn’t didn’t make him feel much better.

            Steve was talking about the Castillo. Something about its military history had struck a chord in that big strong geeky heart of his, and he kept gesturing at it, gleaming in the mellow light across the bay, with his elbow, both hands loaded down with bottles of wine and liquor. “Never been breached, only changed hands in peacetime,” Steve was saying. “Oldest masonry fort in the continental US. Even older than we are, Buck.”

            “Yeah?” Bucky tried to sound interested. He knew they had passed the fort twice that day on the Red Train, but for the life of him Bucky couldn’t remember the second trip around. He realized with a dull jolt that he didn’t remember the way the chocolate had tasted at the factory. He couldn’t even remember buying any.

            “Stood under four flags,” Steve continued. “They have a huge collection of old cannons, some of them dating back to the seventeenth century. Isn’t that neat?”

            Bucky needed to pull himself together before Steve figured out he was off. “Do they still work?” he asked. It was a kind of autopilot answer, but the susurration in his head made it hard to think.

            Steve gave him an odd look. Bucky must’ve said something wrong. “They have demonstrations,” said Steve a little slowly. “The guide on the train said so.”

            “Oh, yeah, right, right,” said Bucky. He didn’t remember. Whatever the train guide had said about the Castillo and the cannons was gone, buried in static and fuzz.  By the look on Steve’s face, he didn’t buy it. “Hey,” said Bucky. He needed to head this off. “I’m hungry.”

            Steve’s face softened. “Of course you are,” he said, his smile warm. “We’re almost there. Want to grab some seafood? There’s supposed to be a good restaurant across the street.”

            Bucky shook himself mentally. His feet were moving, his arms were full, he could hear the hum of traffic and humanity, but where was he? _Where was he?_ Nothing was familiar; he didn’t know, he didn’t know –

            Bascule curve, white balustrade, the low croak of a pelican, the steady hum of traffic. St. Augustine. Matanzas. The bridge. The lions with their distant, arrogant faces. The bridge. He was on the bridge, over the bay, in St. Augustine, and Steve was beside him.

            The buzzing faded a little, and Bucky took a deep breath. The air tasted of exhaust and sea water. He wanted – he wanted –

            He wanted to run, to scream, to shoot, to stab, to drown himself. His thoughts were a Gordian knot of hate and fear. He glanced over the rail of the bridge. He could throw himself in, sink to the bottom, join the bodies of soldiers and sailors below. He could mix his blood with the blood of the fallen, another soldier who’d lost his war. It would be easy. Drop the bags. Swing himself over. Fall. Splash. Sink.

            And Steve would jump in behind him, and drag him back up again.

            He took another deep breath, almost a gasp, as though he had breached the surface. Steve was watching him, brows lowered. The sun gleamed on his blond hair, across the sharp jut of his jaw and cheekbone, glittering on his afternoon stubble.

            “Bucky?”

            “Yeah, wait,” said Bucky. His voice felt thick in the wake of the buzzing and humming, the energy burned away into sludge. He was suddenly very tired. “Seafood sounds good. Gotta piss first.”

            Steve’s face cleared, and he chuckled. “Considering how much booze you sampled, I’m not surprised,” he said easily.

            Bucky forced a smile. He didn’t think it was very convincing, but fortunately Steve didn’t seem to be paying attention. He was watching the boats on the bay, the breeze stirring his hair, looking strong and healthy and so fucking normal Bucky wanted to scream. Why was Steve here with him? Why wasn’t he back in Sarasota with what’s-her-name that he’d sent the picture of the statue to? Why was he living in a duplex with an ex-assassin who was so fucked up he couldn’t remember what he’d bought at the distillery? What was wrong with this asshole, anyway?

            Stevie never did have any sense. Even Bucky’s mom, who had loved Steve like one of her own, had admitted that. Stubborn as a mule.

            They made it to the motel and dumped the bottles under the sink, and Bucky claimed the bathroom first. He shut and locked the door behind him and closed his eyes, trying to will his heart to slow. It was tripping panic-fast against his sternum. He reached with his left hand to his kit and fumbled it open.

            He sat heavily on the toilet seat, fully clothed, and stared at the razor he’d pulled out of his kit. One twist of his metal thumb would break the plastic casing. It would be so easy, so easy to sink the razor into his skin, let the buzzing and the garbage out. He’d just wrap the cut in a pair of underpants. His new green sweatshirt was so baggy that Steve wouldn’t notice.

            But, no. Bucky didn’t heal _that_ fast. Steve would see it when they went to bed. Besides, Bucky had promised Clint he wouldn’t anymore.

            He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, so hard he saw sparkles. His right eye was compressed and warm; his left, transected by cold metal. He took a deep breath in through his nose, and let it out his mouth. And again. And again, like Laura had taught him. Lamaze for the clinically insane.

            He pushed the buzz and garbage down. Now was _not_ the time to fall apart. He was on vacation. With Steve. They were supposed to be having fun. And Bucky _would_ be having fun if he could just pull himself together and stop being a freak for once. He was in a motel, with booze, with Steve, about to eat seafood. What the hell was wrong with him? Nothing. Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. There was nothing to be upset over, nothing to worry about. He was okay.

            He promised.

            He flushed the toilet, stuffed the razor back into his kit, and opened the bathroom door. “I want fried scallops,” he announced. Steve was sorting their bottles by type and flavor, and grinned over his shoulder at him.

            “Then let’s eat,” he said easily, and led Bucky out.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            O’Steen’s Restaurant, directly across A1A from their motel, was cash-only, and had no waiting area. Bucky could see past the hostess window that the little interior was packed full of people, laughing and eating. His stomach growled.

            “You can either wait in the antique store or the bar,” said the hostess, writing their names down on her list. “Just let us know which one, and we’ll call you when your table’s ready.”

            Bucky could smell the tantalizing scent of fried food and cole slaw. It would be a shame to precede their meal with the smell of an antique store, dust and decay and mortality. “We’re older than anything in that place,” he scoffed, waving his flesh arm at the antique store. “Let’s grab a beer.”

            “Right,” conceded Steve. “Because we haven’t had enough to drink today.”

            “You sober?” asked Bucky, strolling toward the English pub. Loud music, muffled by walls and doors, vibrated around the building ominously.

            “Of course,” said Steve disbelievingly. “Sober as you are, jerk.”

            “Then we haven’t had enough to drink,” declared Bucky. He could practically hear Steve roll his eyes.

            He pushed open the pub doors, letting out a blast of heat and noise. Someone was cranking up a karaoke machine in the corner. It smelled of liquor and stale cigarettes. Bucky smiled, feeling at home. The buzzing was almost gone, now. He had managed to tamp it back again, and was starting to feel good. He was going to have fried scallops and beer, and talk Steve into buying the shitty Iron Man on their way back to Sarasota.

            They managed to put down two beers apiece by the time the bartender came over to tell them their table was ready. When they’d pushed through the restaurant crowd and Bucky saw the paper menu and was smiled at by the plump, middle-aged waitress, something in his chest softened and went warm, and by the time he got his fried scallops platter with extra hush puppies and a side of cole slaw, he was feeling pretty damn good. The scallops were so delicious that he ordered a plate of fried oysters, and Steve didn’t have any room to talk because he’d jollied their waitress into an extra helping of shrimp and crab cakes. The more they ate, the more Steve smiled and laughed, the more Bucky felt like a human being again, letting Steve ramble about St. Augustine’s military history and how it had weathered wars and hurricanes and pirates and was an icon not just for the United States, but for the _world,_ Bucky.

            And in the cheerful crowd eating fried seafood and drinking iced tea, Bucky’s poor tattered brain pieced something together then. Steve was St. Augustine, a living symbol of surviving the stain of wars, standing up against the enemy, belonging to Europe and the New World and its people all at once. He was unbreached, battered but whole, out of active combat but an icon of the peace that follows war: Captain America was the Castillo, passed from power to power but never taken by force. Six foot two and eyes of blue, old fashioned and steady, somehow reduced to a tourist attraction to be stared at by the teenage girls at the table in the corner and the little group of kids who may or may not have recognized him, hovering by the entryway.

            Bucky wasn’t sure whether he liked that train of thought or not, so he did what he always did: pushed it down, covered it over, gritted his teeth and stopped thinking about it. He was feeling good. There was no sense risking him getting maudlin over something he wasn’t even sure he could properly articulate.

            By the time they paid their cheerful waitress and complimented the cook, the pub next door was in full swing. The sun had set, and the dark bar windows were full of flashing lights and practically vibrating with music. Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance, grinned, and pushed the doors open.

            It was like getting slapped by Def Leppard. Someone was screeching along with the karaoke machine, and there were two girls standing on the bar, dancing; their stilettos were scraped and dirty, and their faces flushed with tequila. It was wall-to-wall people, all shouting and talking and laughing, and there were strobe lights flashing erratically in the corner. Steve grimaced good-naturedly and waved Bucky to the bar, wordlessly acknowledging Bucky’s superior booze-acquiring skills.

            Bucky managed to wrangle two boilermakers off the bar and through the crowd to Steve. He found his friend in a cluster of people, shouting cheerfully over the din, and pushed a sloshing mug in Steve’s hand. “Sláinte!” he yelled. Steve clinked his mug against Bucky’s. His eyes were shining and he looked almost relieved. “Not exactly Minton’s!”

            Steve laughed. “Not even close!” he agreed.

            The girls around them introduced themselves, beaming and expectant. Bucky promptly forgot their names. Steve, of course, was being openly admired, but Bucky knew his dark, bad-boy looks were garnering just as much attention. He turned his back to the corner, fighting the impulse to get a wall on his back and assess the building. His vulnerability itched and crawled inside him, but he knew Steve would notice, and he wanted Steve to enjoy himself, not worry about his paranoid best friend.

            Bucky was hot, but didn’t want to take off his sweatshirt. He could live with it.

            It was almost impossible to carry on a conversation. Fortunately, everyone was focused on the karaoke. Bucky was only familiar with the kind of karaoke sung at the clubhouse at home, retired Korean War vets crooning Donovan and their wives warbling through Sonny and Cher or Marie Osmond. Here, the oldest song was AC/DC, and neat blouses and pearl necklaces were replaced by tank tops and chokers; pressed khaki trousers by board shorts and hair gel. The B-52s rattled the windows and the girls on the bar screamed and shook their asses.

            Bucky needed a cigarette.

            He drained his boilermaker and pulled Steve by the sleeve. Steve was trying to listen to what the girl beside him was yelling into his ear; he looked at once politely attentive and slightly rattled. “Gonna smoke!” Bucky hollered, miming holding a cigarette. Steve nodded, and turned back to the girl, who was hopping up and down and shrieking.

            Bucky pushed his way through the crowd, suddenly tired. When did clubs get so noisy? When he and Steve were kids, going out to a club meant jazz and swing and the tight curl of his hands around a girl’s waist. He could appreciate a wild party as well as the next guy, but Jesus.

            The back of the pub had an open patio with a fire pit, and a gravel path leading to the bathrooms. It was cooler and quieter out there, only a few people leaning on the wood partitions or sitting on the benches by the fire. A few were smoking. Bucky pulled out his baggie and rolled a cigarette, sparking it up. The tobacco tasted like heaven, and he let his head hit the wall behind him, cold concrete against his skull. He could feel the heat bleed out of his skin.

            He ran his hands through his hair and smoked, watching the others with the patient calm of a sniper. A couple, and several sets who might get there before the night was through, a few single smokers, the steady filtering to and from the bathrooms. Words, complaints about the price of drinks, assessment of this or that person’s skill at karaoke, whether or not the ladies’ room had enough toilet paper. The smells of urine, grass, wood smoke, stale beer. The pulse of music, passing traffic, the far-off mournful hoot of a boat horn. An approaching car, tires crunching through the gravel of the back lot, disgorging people; a woman with blue hair explaining something about an electrical reader.

            Bucky watched the new group file in. The leader had a flashlight and was fumbling some keys. They were heading up the outside staircase to the second floor, what Bucky had assumed was office space. Several of the newcomers were chatting excitedly. Bucky watched them follow the woman with blue hair up the steps and wondered what they were doing.

            “There you are.”

            Steve appeared at his side, flushed and disheveled. At first Bucky was concerned for the unknown artist in Sarasota, but he didn’t see any lipstick stains or hickies, so chances were Steve had behaved himself.

            Pity.

            “Christ, it’s loud in there,” said Steve, leaning against the wall beside Bucky. “Am I getting old, or is it time to leave already?”

            “Well,” drawled Bucky, taking a hit of his cigarette, “drinks ain’t cheap, and we spent a shit-ton of money on booze that’s just waiting for us in the motel room.”

            “We could go for a swim in the pool,” suggested Steve. Bucky raised his eyebrows at him, and Steve grinned. “A stand,” he said. “Go for a stand in the pool.”

            Bucky laughed. “No diving,” he said.

            “Come on,” said Steve warmly. “Let’s bug out.”

            They decided against fighting their way back through the bar, and walked around the building. The lights were on in the second story. They ran across the divided highway to their motel and trotted up the stairs. It felt beautifully cool and calm.

            They flipped for the shower, and Steve called heads and won. Bucky stood on the balcony outside, smoking, watching the pub across the street. He could still hear the commotion, and see the shadows of moving figures in the rooms upstairs.

            Steve appeared on the balcony beside him. He was damp and smelled like soap, his hair ruffled up and his shirt clinging to him. He followed Bucky’s gaze. “Guess the ghost hunters are still there,” he said. He had poured two paper cups full of rum and handed one to Bucky.

            Bucky took a sip. “Ghost hunters?” he asked, puzzled.

            “Yeah,” said Steve. “Girl at the bar told me. Upstairs apartment’s supposed to be haunted by an angry spirit.”

            They were silent a moment, listening to the thumps and screeches from the karaoke.

            “I don’t blame him,” said Bucky.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Steve had three nightmares that night. Bucky knew, because he counted. Bucky didn’t have any. He didn’t sleep. He wanted to watch out for Steve.

            He didn’t really need that much sleep, anyway. He was fine. He’d be okay.

            He promised.

           


	6. 6

 

 

**6.**

 

            **STEVE: Hey you up?**

**SAM: About 2 go 4 a run, wat up**

**STEVE: Nothing, just checking in**

**SAM: …**

**SAM: …**

**SAM: …**

**SAM: come on man what**

**STEVE: It’s nothing, it’s just Bucky being Bucky I guess**

**SAM: well that can either mean he’s picking up strippers and stealing tequila, or plotting to assassinate the mayor and overthrow the local government, which is it?**

**STEVE: very funny ha ha**

**SAM: I mean it man, what? He feel off to you?**

**STEVE: …**

**STEVE: …**

**STEVE: maybe a little? But also I’m distracted so it might be me**

**SAM: lemme guess that sculptor you were telling me about? ;-)**

**STEVE: …**

**STEVE: Maybe?**

**SAM: ok so what is he doing? Or is it something you can’t put your finger on, just a bad vibe?**

**STEVE: He’s forgetting things, goes blank, almost beat some asshole up yesterday**

**SAM: …**

**STEVE: you know what, never mind, it’s nothing, he’s just being himself, I’m overthinking**

**SAM: Don’t diss your instincts man. Traveling can be triggering for vets with PTSD. Support system minimized, crowds, unfamiliar locations, different smells and sounds**

**STEVE: No, he seems fine with all that, just being paranoid, sorry I bothered you**

**SAM: …**

**STEVE: Enjoy your run, I gotta go, he’s done with his shower**

**SAM: u sure? Better safe than sorry man**

**STEVE: we’ll be fine thanks, tell your family I said hi**

**SAM: …**

**STEVE: g2g**

**SAM: …**

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            The morning breeze was erratic, puffing warm and cool by turns, scents from the ocean alternating with damp sand and greenery. Crows squabbled in the hoary live oaks hung with moss, pale sun slanting through the leaves. A ray glanced off Bucky’s arm, flashed briefly in Steve’s eyes, then was occluded when Bucky pulled the sleeve of his green sweatshirt down and hooked his thumb in the hole in the cuff. Steve pretended not to notice.

            “Gorgeous morning,” he said instead.

            “Better coffee, at least,” Bucky conceded. They had stopped at a local coffee shop on the way, eschewing the “free coffee” in the motel office that tasted, so Bucky averred, like brown crayon water. How he knew what brown crayon water tasted like, Steve didn’t know, and didn’t ask. He had enjoyed his cup of joe, and grimaced a little as Bucky downed his quadruple shot three pumps hazelnut full cream latte with mocha sprinkles. Steve wasn’t sure if Bucky’s new metabolism could have enhanced his sweet tooth. He’d have to ask Dr. Cho.

            “So that’s the house,” said Steve, looking down at his pamphlet. “This is where the lighthouse keeper would live with his family.”

            “Be a pretty boring job,” said Bucky with a grimace, looking around. “Get up, go up the stairs, put out the light, go down the stairs. Sun sets, go up the stairs, light the light, go down the stairs. Bet his quads looked like ham hocks.”

            “You mean like yours?” grinned Steve.

            “Nothin’ wrong with my legs, pal,” said Bucky, flexing his knees. “I’m a fuckin’ Adonis.” He glanced down at Steve’s jeans. “I mean, not compared to you, but still. Never heard any complaints.”

            Steve blushed. He had sent a selfie to blonde-and-green-eyes just that morning, not realizing he had captured the naked bulge of his bicep and shoulder, and she had said something similar. He was still unused to peoples’ reactions to his body, still unused to how it had changed, and how people changed when they saw him. Granted, it was a plus when dealing with a pretty woman, but it still knotted up his stomach a little, and he wasn’t exactly sure why.

            He followed Bucky through the live oaks to the house. Bucky gave the museum a cursory and disinterested glance, and sauntered instead down the sandy path directing them to the lighthouse. His sunglasses, pushed up on his head and keeping his untidy hair out of his face, caught the light and flashed briefly. Behind them, a tour bus ground to a halt in the parking lot, disgorging a herd of white-haired tourists. Steve caught the tail end of a conversation: “Help me with this camera strap, Mabel, I don’t want it to get damaged.” “Why you brought this expensive camera, I have no idea, Hank!”

            Steve’s stomach flipped, and he looked closer at Bucky. His sweatshirt had no pockets, and the pockets in his rather tattered jeans were smooth except for the tell-tale squares of his wallet and cell phone. His hands were empty, the flesh one hooked casually in one pocket, the metal one half-hidden in the ripped sweatshirt cuff.

            Bucky hadn’t brought his camera.

            It was probably nothing. Maybe he’d forgotten it. Maybe he’d gotten tired of it, bored with dragging it around. Maybe he didn’t think the panoramic view from atop one of the most iconic lighthouses on the Eastern seaboard worth a few snapshots.

            Yeah, right.

            Steve fought the urge to text Sam, ask him what if anything this might signify. He slipped his hand into his pocket, slid his fingers around the cold slim metal and glass. What would he say, anyway? That it was nothing? Because it was most likely nothing. Just Bucky being Bucky, and Steve overthinking, as usual. How many times had Bucky dived head-first into an interest, only to abandon it a couple of weeks later? And how often had he simply forgotten something of relative importance?

            Even something one of his friends had given him?

            His fingers tightened on the cell phone. Bucky had paused under a large, twisted live oak and was watching a couple of school-age children play on its low, fat branches, swinging up around the trunk and chasing each other around the tree like a couple of awkward monkeys. Bucky was smiling, pale eyes soft, shoulders relaxed. That was a good sign. Likely forgetting the camera was nothing. A blip. An anomaly. Insignificant. Bucky was fine.

            Really.

           

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            The Castillo, Bucky decided, was a mistake.

            It had looked so innocuous. A monument to man’s ingenuity and stubbornness, pock-marked, dusty blond coquina stone, old Spanish flag snapping in the fresh breeze. The sun was bright in the cloud-streaked sky, and tourists rubbed shoulders with park rangers, parents with strollers, bored teens, a scout troop. They milled about together, peered at informational plaques, poked heads in dark cool holes, defied rules by standing on the high balustrades and looking out over the Matanzas, white-capped, snowy gulls hovering on boomerang wings, sailboats cruising past.

            Bucky was comfortably full of beignets and espresso from a little free-standing breakfast kiosk, breathing in fresh cool air and bathed in sunshine, but the Castillo unsettled him. It was a relic of a violent past, damaged but still standing, unused, haunted by death and treachery, a thing to be stared at, a curiosity. His mind flicked back to the restaurant the previous evening, and his stunted thoughts there, and he again pushed it back. Steve was a rock. Just look at the sonofabitch, chin lifted, breeze stirring his dumb perfect hair and plastering his thin tee shirt against that ridiculous physique. No wonder girls stared. That artist back in Sarasota had better get moving.

            The cannon demonstration was unexpected; he should have been paying attention. But Steve was swept up in the reproduction uniforms and Castilian dialect, and Bucky didn’t dare object, though he clutched his metal hand tight and held his breath so long that spots danced before his eyes. He could tell Steve was fascinated by the formality of the ceremony, every once in a while murmuring the translation of the shouted orders that were whipped away in the breeze.

            Bucky knew it was coming and braced himself as best he could, squeezing his eyes shut and putting his fingers in his ears, but the boom and report of the cannon fire jolted through him like a surge of electricity and rattled him down to his bones. His sobbing intake of breath when it was over was fortunately drowned out by the applause and cheers of their fellow tourists.

            Steve was clapping, eyes narrowed a little and lips compressed. Bucky wondered if the sound of cannon fire was one of the things that haunted his dreams, too.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            The Red Train dropped them in front of the Lightner Museum. Bucky’s brain was still humming from the aftershocks of the cannon demonstration, and he couldn’t concentrate on what the driver was saying about the building or the statue of the grotesque little man in front of it. After they had hopped out and stood staring up at it in the sunshine, Bucky said, “Those are weird pants.”

            “That’s Menéndez,” said Steve with a chuckle. “Yeah. Not a fashion mogul.”

            Bucky peered at the plaque under the statue’s feet. “Pedro Menéndez de Avilés,” he read. “So what’s the big deal about this guy?”

            “He founded St. Augustine,” said Steve patiently. Bucky was pretty sure at least four of the Red Train tour guides had already explained this at length. “Enriched the Spanish throne. Slaughtered the French.”

            “Oh,” said Bucky. He knew he would probably forget this, too. “Did he build the castle thing?”

            “No,” said Steve gently. “That was a hundred years later.”

            Bucky looked up at the statue, wondering if it was a city requirement for statues to look arrogant and condescending. Considering the city’s age and history, he supposed it was justified. “This his house?” he asked, gesturing to the big white building. “No,” he said, before Steve could reply with a pained look on his face. “It’s a – it was a – hotel, right? This was a hotel,” he decided hesitantly, pieces snapping together in his brain. “Yeah. This is one of Flagler’s hotels, the Al – the Al something – not the Alamo, I’d remember that.” He flashed an impish smile at Steve.

            “You dork,” said Steve, cuffing him on the shoulder, his eyes fond. “The Alcazar.” He gestured with his chin at the building, imposing and white, topped with red crenellations. “You remember what’s in it, Mr. Historian?”

            “Collections of collections,” said Bucky confidently. He strolled past the statue, Steve on his six, and walked toward the front arches.

            Bucky did not share Steve’s love of historical monuments. Things were just things; old things were only images of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, because in the passage of centuries they could have been used for either good or evil. It was just stuff – amoral at best, utilized by humanity to forward its own disparate agendas. Nothing was inherently valuable, not even gold bars, because their worth was artificial, granted by fiscal laws and the fluctuation of economic markets.

            So he was completely flummoxed by his reaction to the courtyard.

            It was lovely – lovely in a way that made his heart ache a little. Formal flowering shrubbery and vivid annuals waved him in around shiny green boxwood brakes and geometric ponds, the glittering fountain bright, stately and genteel. The midday sun flickered through the ornamental trees and warmed the old stone. Bucky felt welcomed, as though the violent spirit of the city’s founder had been pushed decorously aside in favor of a peaceful, more ecumenical greeting. He stood for a moment, taking it in, wondering if the museum had anything lovelier to offer than this spot.

            A flash in the water, bright orange and white, caught his eye, and he crouched next to the edge, peering in eagerly.

            “Koi!” he exclaimed happily. He grinned up at Steve, who was watching him with a soft, fond expression. Right next to him was a little feeding station filled with what looked like cat food. Hung beneath the spigot was a sign: “25¢ FEED THE FISH!!!”

            The fish blurbled and swished, opening and shutting their suctiony mouths expectantly. Bucky narrowed his eyes.

            “Steve,” he said firmly. “I’m gonna need all your quarters.”

            Steve sighed, and dug out his wallet.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

.

            “I can’t believe you let Mr. Dimmesdale have all our marbles,” said Bucky for the fifth time. The marble collection in the Lightner had made him first excited, then disappointed when he realized that all of the marbles he and Steve had played with as boys in Brooklyn were irretrievable.

            “We were adults,” Steve argued. The displays in the museum had both intrigued and slightly disturbed him. People spent their whole lives collecting things, only to die and have their relatives thoughtlessly auction them off. How was it worthwhile, keeping anything at all, when you just passed on and left everything behind? “You were in Italy, getting shot at. His grandkids were visiting.”

            “Shitty little kids,” complained Bucky. “I remember those fuckers. Spoiled rotten. Shoulda slapped ‘em silly.” He sniffed. “Didn’t deserve my marbles. Especially not my blue ribbon Lutz.”

            “True,” sighed Steve. Their landlord’s grandchildren had been horrible examples of procreation. “Hey, maybe one of ‘em got it stuck up his nose.”

            Bucky snorted. “Woulda served ‘em right,” he grunted.

            They swung off the Red Train in front of a white-walled house. The plaque on the front confirmed that it was, as the driver had promised, the Ximinez-Fatio house. Steve was a little disappointed. It looked exactly like every other house in Old St. Augustine, despite the accolades heaped on it by the pamphlets and websites. He glanced at Bucky. Bucky was scowling at the house, looking very unimpressed.

            “Come on,” jollied Steve a little desperately. “We can at least look around.”

            “What’re you trying to do, get me all house-trained and shit?” muttered Bucky, hunching his shoulders. The front entryway was choked with tourists, mainly families, peering in windows and walking around the flower beds. “God, all this domestication. Let’s go back and look at the marbles again.”

            “Give it a rest, soldier,” snapped Steve, and then cringed, going cold. He ought not to have called Bucky that. He glanced over at Bucky, but his friend only gave him a dark look, and stalked stiffly towards the house.

            “Goddammit,” muttered Steve. Eggshells; why did he always feel like he was walking on eggshells with Bucky nowadays? Everything with Bucky had always been so easy before, when they were boys and young men; Bucky’s easy smile, light laugh, twinkling, winking eyes, solid camaraderie. Steve could say anything, do anything, and Bucky would just sigh, wade in, and save his ass, over and over again. Things were so different now, and Bucky could be such a bastard.

            Steve hated change. But watching Bucky walk away, head sunk between his shoulders, left hand curled protectively into his sweatshirt sleeve, Steve’s heart turned over. He didn’t want things to go on like this, always on edge, wondering if Bucky was going to snap – or worse, if their friendship would fade, the gulf between them widening slowly over time, drifting apart.

            Steve set his jaw. That was _not_ going to happen. Not on his watch. Bucky was all he had left. He’d fly another Valkyrie into the Arctic before letting Bucky go again.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Bucky didn’t believe Steve when he said there were no open tours, but really, he didn’t care. The house had bothered him. It was so peaceful, so homey. People had lived and loved and died there. It had survived war and famine and neglect, but still stood, charming and secure, mocking him with its comfortable serenity.

            Fuck that. It didn’t always work that way. Sometimes you survived war and famine and neglect and ended up a clusterfuck of chaos and regret.

            Like Steve, for example.

            He was happy enough to put the old white house behind them. Steve was looking dubiously at the soft-sand, timbered building in front of them, frowning. “A hospital, really, Buck?” he said, sounding puzzled. “You want to see an old hospital?”

            Bucky wanted to snap, “It beats your Better Homes and Gardens tour,” but instead muttered, “Yeah.” He couldn’t really tell Steve that anything would be better than forcing himself to come to grips with the fact he couldn’t get his shit together. Misery loved company, and he might as well hear about all the soldiers who’d tried to keep the city safe, and gotten wounded for their efforts. He could at least relate to that. “Military hospital,” he added, gesturing to the sign in front of the ancient building. “Spent enough time in those places.”

            Steve glanced at him. He looked uneasy, which made Bucky feel bad. He dug around in the morass of memories of mud and antiseptic and needles, desperate for a bright spot in the shitshow that had been World War II, and found one: a brown-haired, blue-eyed beauty with contraband cherry lipstick and a smart, starched hat. “Mavis,” he mused, grasping after it, careful of pulling any threads that might send him spinning in the other direction. “Mavis?” He frowned. “Was that her name?”

            This startled a laugh out of Steve. “Nurse Mavis Kushner,” he said, eyes softening and going distant with the memory. “Pretty. Smart. Yeah. I remember her.”

            Bucky’s mouth slid into a grin. He could remember the feel of her beneath his hands, her breath on his neck and her hands in his hair. “She was a beaut, wasn’t she, Stevie?” he said with an appreciative sigh. “God, glad I remember something good.”

            “Me too,” said Steve. He smiled again and said dryly, “Though most of what I remember about Nurse Mavis Kushner is catching you feeling her up in the medic’s tent in Ancona.”

            Bucky sifted through the shattered pieces in his mind. There was something tactile there, warm and giving, and the brief flash of curves beneath stiff white fabric. “Buddy, did she have a nice rack,” said Bucky softly.

            Steve snorted. “Such a romantic,” he teased. He gestured with one massive shoulder. “Come on. Let’s see how many more beautiful Army nurses you can remember feeling up.”

            “There weren’t _that_ many,” Bucky protested, then paused, one foot on the lintel. Was he sure? His memories of that time period were clearer than most, but still heavily damaged by Hydra’s whispers. “I think,” he said slowly. “Were there?”

            “Like I was following you fellas around while you sniffed after WACs and nurses,” said Steve, making a face. “I had – “ he paused, flinching a little, and Bucky almost cursed aloud. _Steve had Peggy_.

            God fucking dammit, why couldn’t Bucky keep his goddamned mouth shut for once in his life? Bucky knew Peggy was still alive, languishing in the Memory Care ward of a private retirement home. He didn’t need to bring it up. He watched Steve set his jaw, and knew what that meant. That was Steve Not Thinking About It. And usually when Steve would Not Think About It, it was because Bucky was there and he didn’t want to interrupt whatever the two of them were doing.

            Bucky’s insides twisted wrong and he felt a little sick. Why couldn’t they just have a good time? Huh? How come the past kept creeping up behind them and stabbing them in the back? Fuck the Army, fuck SHIELD, fuck Hydra, fuck all those guys. Why couldn’t they just leave two broken Brooklyn boys alone? He was going to go into this museum, this Spanish Military Hospital, and he was going to gawk at the old tools and thank his lucky stars he was living in the 21st Century with things like vaccines and penicillin and try to remember more about Nurse Mavis Kushner, and then he and Steve were going to go have lunch and eat seafood and drink beer and hopefully meet each other somewhere in the middle, because he couldn’t stand the constant frayed and stretched-out tension between himself and the only man in the world he trusted.

            He stepped into the cool, dim building, looking around curiously. Plaques and display cases adorned the walls, and two smiling docents in period dress greeted him. He waved Steve forward, still too rattled to deal with things like saying hello and handing over money for the inevitable tour and pamphlet, and shuffled aside, gauging the room. Solid walls, small windows, curved ceilings, smells of dust and wood, the low drone of tourists, the flash of glass casings. He felt Steve move into the room behind him, his warm, solid presence, comforting and exasperating all at once, and tried to look casual as he strolled further into the room, looking at the glass cases.

            The glass cases filled with surgical tools.

            The panic heaved up from his belly to his throat, and he tasted bile. He pinched his right arm with his metal hand, willing the sharp pain to force the terror down. He could hear Steve behind him, speaking with the docents, his voice calm and unknowing. He sounded interested – him and his history – he had so few hobbies, always worrying about Bucky – he didn’t even have any artwork on his walls, god - Bucky couldn’t ruin this for him. He’d already ruined his tour of the Ximinez-Fatio house. He needed to get it together.

            He needed to get the hell out of this room.

            He found a door and passed through it, his ears hazed with static, sparkles throbbing at the edges of his vision. The next room was smaller and filled with more glass cases. Bucky’s eye was drawn to a crooked, dark piece of metal, and he looked.

            It was jagged-edged, cruel. Beneath it was a small placard that read, _Sixteenth Century Amputation Saw._

            Bucky stumbled back, and the world went white.


	7. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:
> 
> Sorry about the angst. We'll get back to the shitty Iron Man statue and green pie soon, I promise.
> 
> Trigger alert for panic attacks. It's a shame trazodone wouldn't help a super soldier, right?
> 
> Gaufre's is a real place, and the soup is fucking amazing. If you ever get to St. Augustine, you MUST go there.

**7.**

 

           

            “Oh, the Ximinez-Fatio house isn’t for everyone,” smiled the docent, handing Steve his Spanish Military Hospital Museum pamphlet. “It’s a pretty place, but not very compelling to someone who’s led an active life.” She glanced knowingly at Steve’s US Army shirt, and he grinned.

            “The hard part’s finding stuff that interests him,” he admitted, glancing around to make sure Bucky wasn’t paying attention to their conversation. Bucky hated to be talked about. But Steve had lost track of him somehow while chatting with the docent, complimenting the accuracy of her costume, hearing the calm hum of the museum around him. Well, Bucky had wanted to be here; chances were he wouldn’t bug out. “So far, I think his favorite place has been the Irish pub.”

            The docent laughed. She was comfortable and round, with roseleaf cheeks and plump hands. She reminded Steve painfully of Bucky’s mother. “Have you eaten at Barley Republic?” she asked cheerfully. “I bet you’d both like that. It’s on Spanish Street – “

            “Donna? Sir?” The other docent, young and fresh-faced, bustled into the room, her eyes wide with alarm. “Um, sir, I think your friend is having a seizure – “

            Steve glanced away from the first docent, realizing the girl was talking to him, her eyes wide. His mild irritation at the interruption was replaced by a shock of alarm.

            Bucky – _where was Bucky?_

            He stepped around the barrier past the docent, and his eyes landed on one of the glass cases. There was a sickle-shaped colonial artifact labeled “amputation knife.”

            Panic was a mild term for what he felt next. He pushed past the second docent, who flattened herself against the inner lintel to get out of his way, and bolted into the second room, staring around wildly. Where was Bucky, where was Bucky, where was –

            He drew up short, horrified. “Oh, god,” he whispered.

            A handful of tourists stood back cautiously, eyeing the lump in the corner; one mother had her hand over her small daughter’s eyes. Steve didn’t blame her. The lump, clad in tattered jeans and a sweatshirt splattered in vomit, was curled into a quaking ball on the floor, hands clutching dark shaggy hair, one boot making an erratic tattoo against the wall. He rocked back and forth, gulping down hurried sobs, and the eyes in the pasty face were like a wild animal’s.

            Steve was moving without thinking, mindless in his panic. “Bucky. Buck. Oh, god.”  Then there was a small hand on his arm, and he heard the first docent’s voice, warm and firm:

            “Wait. Stop.”

            Steve jerked his elbow away and slewed around. She was watching Bucky, her eyes competent and sympathetic. She glanced up at Steve, sharp, incisive.

            “Slow. Be careful.”

            Then Steve remembered Sam’s instructions, coming on the heels of a disastrous panic attack at the Publix meat counter. He had reached automatically for Bucky, only to be struck by a flailing metal hand, with Bucky shrieking something in Russian. Steve choked down his reflexive bland reassurance and knelt beside Bucky’s quaking body. Behind his combined panic and mortification, he was surprised to feel himself trembling, too.

            “Bucky,” he said.  His voice quavered, and he set his jaw, forcing himself to sound calmer. “Bucky. Hey. I’m here.”

            The glare Bucky gave him was furious, pinprick-pupils, bile-coated lips in a rictus. “S-s-s saw,” he grated, and he banged the back of his head on the wall twice, hard.

            “Hey.” Steve gulped, and wished like hell Sam was here, despite the deep gulf of distrust between his two friends. He could hear the older docent, Donna, speaking, snippets aimed at the tourists: _combat veterans_ and _PTSD_ and _we apologize for the inconvenience._ Sneakered feet shuffling in the dust, the room emptying, voices receding. He blinked; to his annoyance he felt tears roll down his cheeks. He knuckled them away impatiently. “Hey. C’mon, Buck – “

            Bucky curled in on himself like an armadillo, arms clamped over his head, and drew his knees up past his chin. Steve reached out, paused, then said shakily: “Can I touch you?”

            Bucky made a noise in response, ending in a vowel and not a sibilant, hinting Steve had best keep his distance. Steve withdrew his hand, feeling completely useless, furious at himself for not being able to read Bucky anymore, furious at Bucky for letting things get this bad without saying anything. “It’s okay,” he said, knowing it wasn’t. “You’re okay.” That was a lie, too. “Buck, you gotta – get up – “

            Light footsteps on the smooth floor pattered behind him. Donna the docent’s voice was low and soft, not projecting anything, the voice of a practiced woman calming a panicked animal. “Fresh air helps,” she said, gesturing behind them. “There’s a garden through that door. No one’s out there.”

            Steve glanced up at her. The concern in her eyes both warmed and irritated him. They were goddamn super soldiers, for Christ’s sake, and they couldn’t even walk through a museum without needing help. “Hey,” he said, reaching out but not touching Bucky’s trembling arm in its garish green sweatshirt. “Let’s get you outside.”

            He expected Bucky to struggle to his feet, but his friend rolled onto his hands and knees and crawled, sobbing and trembling, hugging the wall, to the garden door, cringing up into the sunshine like a whipped dog. Steve scrambled after him, painfully aware he was hovering, inadequate, an impediment even to the docent who moved with calm and patient grace. “I’m going to help you up,” she said to Bucky, leaning over, her voice steady. “I’m putting my hand on your arm. Is that all right?”

            Bucky’s hair swung back and forth in front of his face when he nodded. He let Donna guide him to his feet and stumbled to a rickety little garden chair. He groped for it with shaking hands and Donna said, “That’s right, have a seat right there. Just sit and rest. It’s quiet out here and no one else is around, just you and your friend.” She glanced over her round shoulder at Steve, dark eyes sympathetic. “I’ll keep everyone else out.”

            “Thank you,” said Steve flatly, not even knowing what else to say. Bucky had let the docent lift him by his left arm. His metal arm. And he hadn’t even flinched away from her, letting this stranger guide him into the walled herb garden, redolent with thyme and rosemary, shade-dappled sunshine, the hum of tourists through the open windows of the museum.

            He watched the docent press one hand on Bucky’s shoulder – again, his metal one – while Bucky hid his face in his hands, shaking all over like poorly-tuned engine. “I’ll leave you boys out here,” she said, everything Steve wasn’t at that moment, competent and trustworthy and useful. “Let me know if you need anything.”

            “Thank you,” said Steve again, heart heavy. Donna just nodded and stepped back into the museum, holding up her long skirts so she wouldn’t trip over the uneven stone stoop. And Steve was left alone in the quiet coquina-walled garden, birds chirping, sun shining, herbs and flowers waving, while Bucky Barnes trembled to pieces and Steve couldn’t do a goddamn thing to help him.

            “Buck,” he said, stomach knotted. He reached out again, wanting to grab Bucky’s hand, or touch his shoulder, but he knew he shouldn’t without asking permission first, and that was so unfair. “Bucky. You need to tell me when things get this bad so this doesn’t hap-“

            “Fuck you,” grated Bucky, muffled by his hands, then louder: “ _Fuck you,”_ his voice grating like a corpse dragged on gravel. Steve recoiled, stung by the hate in it. “You fucking little punk, you don’t get to tell me what I tell you.” His voice was shaking, higher than usual, venomous and harsh. Steve’s fear flipped over into anger.

            “But you’re not well,” he insisted. “We both know – “ His hand reached automatically to Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky jolted back, head shooting up. Steve recognized the impotent rage on the Winter Soldier’s face and jerked back, adrenaline spiking across his back.

            “ _I’m_ not well?” Bucky spat. He wiped off the vomit on his mouth with his sleeve; his lips were trembling, his voice tight. “You don’t sleep either – I hear your nightmares. You’re just as fucked up as I am, you goddamned hypocrite.”

            Steve drew back, stung, ice washing over him and his forehead growing tight. Bucky had heard him. He knew. Of course he knew. Steve could never hide anything from him. “I didn’t – I wanted – “

            “Paradin’ me around in broad daylight – “ Bucky dropped his head back into his hands, his voice thick with tears. “Pretendin’ we’re just fucking normal – “ He curled in again, dropping his head to his knees. Muffled: “I can’t, oh god – “

            Steve was dumb, thoughts like churning concrete. He had failed. Everything had gone backwards.  Because of him.

            Eighteen months, shot to hell.

            He found another garden chair, rusted and unstable, and put it next to Bucky’s – not too close; he could feel the anger and pain and frustration radiating off him like a kerosene heater – and lowered himself down carefully. The moist dirt and coquina smelled deep and cool, and there was a stand of lemon basil at his feet, wafting sharp and sweet all around them.

            The sun moved shadows past the wall and the neat rows of waving stalks and bushy leaves. Steve heard the younger docent speaking, questions from the tour group, then shuffling feet leaving the building. Another group filtered in, some glancing curiously through the doorway at the two men sitting in the herb garden by the sign marked “Do Not Enter,” but no one bothered them. That tour group made their way through the hospital, speaking, laughing, asking questions, leaving. And the sun pushed the shadows further across the wall, and the grackles and sparrows squabbled at the feeder, and another tour group came in, and Bucky said nothing, so Steve said nothing.

            Steve had suffered in many ways during the course of his life: poverty, illness, bullying, battle wounds. He privately acknowledged that losing Bucky the first time had been worse than losing his parents, and losing Bucky the second time had been worse than coming out of the ice. Now he felt like he was losing Bucky for the third time, and the anticipation of that loss was so overwhelming that he simply felt numb. He stared past his clasped hands at the dirt between his boots, trickles of sweat running down his back and his face as the sun shifted to blaze past the shade. He had lost. He should have listened to Sam. He had failed – of course he had failed. He always failed Bucky.

            He couldn’t tell the difference between his sweat and his tears, but wiped his eyes anyway when Donna’s plump, cotton-swathed shape appeared in the doorway. She stepped briskly up to them past the verbena and handed them bottles of water. “Here,” she said. “You boys need to hydrate.”

            Steve took the bottle; it was ice cold and wet. He wanted to open Bucky’s for him, hand it to him, tell him to drink; but he couldn’t. But Bucky raised his head, face mottled and eyes dark and baggy, and took the bottle, draining it in one long gulp. Steve sipped at his, wondering, not for the first time, how long super soldiers could go without drinking, and if their thirst felt different from normal men’s thirst. Donna stood smiling down at them, her face soft with sympathy.

            “There’s a restaurant in the building next door,” she said. “Gaufre’s. The owners are friends of mine. I just talked to them on the phone. The restaurant is empty, and they’d be glad to have you stop by for a bite to eat.” She glanced at Bucky’s vomit-spattered sweatshirt. “I’m sure you could use it.”

            Steve’s gut reaction was to politely decline, to take charge of Bucky’s breakdown, take him back to the hotel, hide him away. And he didn’t have a Gaufre’s on his Excel spreadsheet, hadn’t heard of it, never researched it, didn’t know anything about it. But he said nothing, too afraid of fracturing their friendship to speak. He glanced at Bucky instead, fearful, hoping the hate he’d seen was gone.

            Bucky tipped his face up to the docent, his eyes red and his mouth turned down, shoulders slumped. He was drained, defeated. Then he turned to Steve, and Steve clenched, bracing himself for vitriol. But Bucky’s eyes were exhausted and pleading, and he gestured with his hand clumsily, helpless, wordless, and Steve knew that tell: _You do it. I can’t._

Steve was the less wounded of the two super soldiers. That meant he was on deck. He peered up at the docent, unsure. She smiled gently.

            “Their son was in the Army,” she said. “They’d be honored to serve you.”

            Steve glanced at Bucky. He looked terrible, drawn and pale and sweating, but Steve knew that he couldn’t make a decision to save his life after a panic attack. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “We’ll – we’d be happy to.”

            He rose to his feet, feeling every second of his ninety-seven years, fighting back the urge to help Bucky up. Bucky stood, shaky and uncertain, and ran his hands through his wildly disarranged hair. He glanced down at his green Burger Buckets sweatshirt and grimaced.

            “Kind of warm for a heavy shirt,” said the docent, reaching out her hand.

            Bucky shucked the shirt and handed it, inside-out and balled up, to her, and Steve watched them watch each other, wondering if Bucky saw his mother in the docent’s firm and gentle gaze. The adamantium arm flashed bright in the afternoon sun, but the docent took Bucky by the left hand and squeezed. She smiled sadly at them both, cheeks dimpling like dents in cream.

            “You’ll be okay,” she said.

            “If you say so,” said Steve dully.

            Donna led them to the back of the garden wall and pushed open the heavy gate. “There’s Avilés,” she said, pointing. “Turn left and walk to the end of the next building. You can go into Gaufre’s through their back door. They’re expecting you.”

            “Thank you,” said Steve. He stepped onto the cobblestones.

            “Thanks,” said Bucky. His voice was hoarse. Steve saw that he was still holding the docent’s hand, and turned away. When they got to the corner of the house, blue with shadow, the docent gave them a smile and a wave, and disappeared back into the hospital.

            He and Bucky turned left on Avilés and walked through the bright, hot sun down the old cobblestone street. They passed an antique store, a café, a surf shop, and then Steve spotted the sign for Gaufre’s just as an older gentleman, his hair and moustache grizzled, stepped out of a blue-painted door, wiping his hands on his apron. He saw them approach and beamed.

            “Donna said you are coming,” he said. “Please come in.” His voice was heavily accented, and he smelled of coffee and sweet pastries. To Steve’s surprise, his stomach growled; he reflected that he still had to feed his body, even if his life was falling apart. And Bucky was probably starving – he’d emptied his stomach, and they had missed lunch.

            The little restaurant was cluttered and clean. Pictures of Greece and Poland, gilt icons, paintings, and knick-knacks were scattered over the white plaster walls, and the tables were covered in bright red-checked cloths. It was cool and dim compared to the sunny afternoon outside. The man seated them at a table in the corner, both chairs against the wall and facing the doors and windows, and then gestured a young waitress forward. She put ice water and iced tea on the table, smiled, and left.

            “I give you our soup,” declared the man, nodding down at them. “Is very good, our soup. Good for young soldiers who lost too much.”

            Steve and Bucky sat silently as the waitress and old man bustled around them. Bucky was slouched down, eyes staring blankly at the tablecloth; he was miserable and withdrawn. Steve gulped. He hated feeling helpless.

            They drank the tea, and ate the soup, which was as promised excellent – coconut and chicken and nuts, spicy and flavorful. Then out came the spanakopita, and pierogis with bacon, and stuffed cabbage – almost as good as Bucky’s, though that thought felt traitorous – a huge plate of hummus and baba ganoush and bread, and then the man brought hot espresso with sugar cubes, and enormous crisp waffles dripping with ice cream and chocolate and strawberries. They ate in silence, Steve murmuring thanks to the old man and the waitress whenever a new dish was placed before them, but Bucky said nothing. He ate without enthusiasm, staring at the food, hiding his eyes from Steve behind the stringy curtain of dark hair.

            Other patrons trickled in and out, drinking coffee, ordering pastries, eating Greek salad with pita bread, but Steve noticed the waitress seated all of them far away from the corner in which two broken soldiers huddled. He was thankful, but felt deeply the gulf that separated them from the rest of the world, from each other.

            Finally, when the waitress came by with pastries, Bucky shook his head. “No, thanks,” he said, his voice gritty, and she smiled, refilled their coffees, and left them alone. Bucky put his head in his hands, staring blankly at his half-eaten waffle, soaked in melted ice cream.

            Steve knew he needed to apologize, but didn’t even know how to start. Before he could speak, Bucky muttered under his breath:

            “I fucked up your schedule. Sorry.”

            Steve felt like throwing his hands up in the air, shaking Bucky, shouting. The schedule didn’t matter, not anymore, not ever.

            “It’s okay,” he whispered, not wanting to meet Bucky’s eye. But he knew Bucky was looking at him, his pale eyes burning white-hot with pain and anger and sorrow. His color-coded spreadsheet seemed petty and insignificant right then.

            “Is it?” asked Bucky. Steve swallowed heavily, the barbs of Bucky’s gaze pinning him down. Bucky’s hair hung lank, and he was pale. His hands, one metal, one flesh, resting on the table still trembled a little. “Is it okay?”

            Guilt and grief surged over Steve, his brain tumbling and drowning. “What did I do?” he asked miserably. “What did I do wrong?” He had to know, he had to fix it.

            “You couldn’t reach me when I fell out of the train,” said Bucky tiredly.

            Steve flinched, shame and mortification rolling over him again. He dropped his face in his hands.

            “It’s not your fault, Steve.”

            Steve choked, “Yes, it is.”

            “No, it’s not.” Bucky’s voice, firmer and more adamant. “It’s not your fault. It was never your fault. Not any of it.”

            Steve shook his head. “I still need to fix it,” he said into his hands.

            “Bullshit,” sighed Bucky. “You don’t gotta fix anything. Not your job, and I can’t be fixed anyway.”

            “Oh, god, how can you say that?” Steve dropped his hands from his face. Bucky was watching him, tired, dark circles under his eyes and the edges of his mouth dragged down. His metal arm gleamed dully in the light from the window, and his shabby tee shirt’s stretched-out collar showed the jut of his collar bones, wiry dark chest hair, and the edge of the thick, ugly tangle of scar tissue. “You think you have to live like this for the rest of your life? Jesus, Buck.”

            “So what if I do?” asked Bucky tiredly. “So what if you do?” He shrugged one shoulder. “So we’re fucked up. At least we’re fucked up together.”

            That shouldn’t have made Steve feel better, but oddly enough, it did. He dragged his spoon through the mess of chocolate on his plate, leaning his head on his hands. He shook his head, going back to the one thing that kept him trying to make things perfect.

            “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. All of it.”

            “It’s not,” said Bucky. He reached out with his metal hand, fingers flashing, and took the spoon out of Steve’s. “And even if it was your fault – which it isn’t – I’d still forgive you, punk.” He set the spoon down, and rested his hand on Steve’s forearm.

            Steve broke down and cried for the first time in a year and a half.

 


	8. 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (AN: Happy month-end! Thank all of you for sticking with us through this fic. Needless to say, it’s been a roller coaster, and we’re so tickled you’ve followed us through it all. Your comments and kudos are encouraging and so heart-warming, and we love that our readers are smart, perceptive, and interested. We couldn’t do this without you!
> 
> Almost done now. You guys are awesome to stick with us!
> 
> Le Rouret and Sheraiah)

**8.**

 

 

            Bucky lay in the dark and listened to Steve breathe.

            He had vague memories of doing this many times before – sitting beside a small, pock-marked brass bed with a thin sagging mattress, watching the scrawny blond boy propped up on pillows while Bucky read to him – yellow-backed novels, repetitive and uninteresting, but the boy hardly listened, sunken-eyed, sallow, breath thin and fast.

            “ _Big Roy strode into the darkened room, his pearl-handled six-gun in his hand_ ,” Bucky read. “ _He saw a pretty girl cast upon the dirt floor. She had porcelain skin and eyes like the blue sky. It was Nan Porter, the sweetest girl in Franklin County, her blue dress stained with mud from where the yellow devils had thrown her so cruelly in the road. ‘Nan!’ cried Big Roy, his great heart leaping in his chest at the sight of her. ‘Thank God you are safe!’ ‘‘Oh, Mr. Smith!’ cried Nan, clasping her hands and looking up at him with shining eyes. ‘Please say you have come to rescue me!’_ Gee, Steve, this book your ma gave you is pretty awful. You sure you want me to finish it?” And the boy in the bed huffed a little, and started to cough, and then the nurses came in and told Bucky to leave. He didn’t think he’d ever finished that book. He wondered how it had ended.

            Probably with the hero marrying the girl after defeating the bad guys. That’s how all those yellow-backed novels ended, after all. Shame the real world wasn’t a bit like that. No, in the real world the hero and the heroine saved the world together, but fate was cruel and they lived their lives separate, struggling to regain some semblance of normalcy, chasing peace when there was none to be found. And instead of the white picket fences and happily ever afters, they got a marginally grateful public, pensions, and state-funded, mediocre psychiatric care.

            Steve’s breath was even, deep and sonorous. Bucky could make out his silhouette in the dark, etched in pale blue light from the bathroom window. Now that sallow little boy was deep-chested and square-jawed, still possessing that stubborn big heart, but fractured on the inside, a wound as debilitating as the damaged lungs of his youth. But there were no nurses and kind-eyed doctors concerned for him now. Just Bucky, and a smattering of other people who looked at Bucky askance: Sam Wilson, Sharon Carter, Maria Hill, tolerant only through Steve’s insistence. If anyone else saw the broken boy inside Steve Rogers’ big healthy body, Bucky didn’t know who it was.

            Steve’s breath hitched, and Bucky watched him carefully. There had been a small brass bell by the sallow boy’s bed, there for Bucky to ring if Steve’s lungs started acting up, to call in Mrs. Rogers or Bucky’s Ma to help Steve sit up and to pound on his back and rub liniment on his chest. Their tenement hadn’t had electricity, so Bucky had read to Steve by a hurricane lantern. He remembered the fresh, hot smell of the oil, the dusty feel of the pages beneath his fingers – smaller, thinner fingers, dirt beneath his nails, scraped knuckles from constantly getting into fights. Those fingers would eventually grip the guns he read about in all those yellow-backed novels, but no hero’s journey had been laid out for Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier’s bloody story was written over that black-haired Irish kid’s future, and there was no happy ending in sight.

            Steve’s breath stuttered and faded, then quickened. Bucky watched his hands twitch against the sheets, and Steve muttered something under his breath. Bucky wasn’t sure, but it sounded like _watch out._ Then he whined.

            Bucky swung his legs out of bed and stood. The motel room was small enough that he didn’t even have to step between the two beds, just turn and sit down on the edge of Steve’s. He put his flesh hand on Steve’s shoulder, and pressed down lightly. When Steve’s breathing didn’t slow, Bucky pressed harder, and whispered into the blue-black dark:

            “Stevie.”

            Steve gasped awake, spasming beneath Bucky’s hand. His eyes, pale in the shadows, stared up at him. Then recognition washed over the panic, and his breath slowed.

            “Nightmare?” he croaked.

            “Yeah,” said Bucky. “You’re okay.”

            “Yeah,” said Steve. He rolled over.

            Bucky got up and slid back into bed.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

           

            The old man’s neck was thin and ropy. His metal fingers closed over it. He could feel the tendons pop and crush, and his pleading voice gurgled into silence. The harsh yellow street light flickered over his head, and the smell of gasoline was everywhere. It had been messy. His handlers would be angry with him. The Chair waited, black and stained, sprouting wire vines and sparking flowers. He tried to run, but there was a man with a cudgel, smiling cruelly.

            He jolted into darkness, sucking in the stale motel air, hands clenched in the sheets. He panted, willing the dream away, filled with a horrible compulsion to run and run and never return.

            Something stirred in the next bed. “Nightmare?” whispered Steve.

            Bucky gulped. He could still smell oil and exhaust, feel the old man’s larynx shatter beneath his fingers. “Yeah,” he croaked.

            “Need a smoke?”

            “Yeah.”

            They got up and went out to the balcony. Bucky smoked, and Steve stood beside him. Across the highway, the frenetic blare of karaoke thudded, voices shrieking over the din. Bucky wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw the curtains in the upstairs window twitch.

            “Poor ghosts,” he said. Steve grunted in agreement.

 

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            There was no question about sticking to the schedule anymore. Steve had balled it up and thrown it away, anyway. And Bucky couldn’t have found his copy if he’d tried – it was crumpled and damp, somewhere, lost in the morass of dirty clothes and toiletries and underwear.

            They went to Vilano Beach. It was, as they had predicted to each other, different from the beaches by Sarasota. The sand was rough and grainy, and there were smuts and ridges of seaweed and tar draped in dirty ribbons across the white dunes. But the sun was bright and hot, and the dark green waves crested foamy over the breakers, lifting their heavy violent bodies, skimming them to the shore like debris. Broken shells and sea glass sank beneath their toes, and Steve found a live sea star on the sand bar. He and Bucky watched its little cilia wave, then Steve threw it back into the ocean to live out the rest of its life at peace, away from the intrusive fingers of two warriors.

            They found a nice restaurant tucked on the docks, and had fresh broiled snapper and sweet potato. Their skin was still sandy and stinging, their hair heavy on their foreheads and their noses burning. They blazed through their meals with a hunger born of hot weather and cold water, and to their waiter’s amazement finished off a pitcher of beer, two orders of hush puppies, and an entire key lime pie.

            They went back to the motel and stood in the tiny pool, sipping surreptitious rum in their cans of cola and talking about bringing the Barton kids to Disney. They almost left when a family of four arrived to dunk their restless toddlers in the water, but stayed to talk to the parents about ghost tours and the Gator Park and ice cream shops, Steve listening with flattering interest as the father described his job as an IT project manager, and Bucky helping the mother teach the kids to swim. Neither parent even commented on his arm.

            The family left them to put the kids down for a nap, and Steve and Bucky flipped for the shower. Steve won, so Bucky spent his time sorting through the pictures on his camera, wishing he’d had the presence of mind to bring it with him the day before and at least capture some of the lighthouse. He was thankful there were no shots of the hospital, though. Bucky’s eidetic memory would not let him forget the curve of the amputation knife, and he didn’t want a memoir of his collapse.

            Steve finished his shower and then it was Bucky’s turn, standing beneath the lukewarm water and staring at his feet, the sand swirling aimlessly around his toes to the drain. He washed the salt half-heartedly out of his long tangled hair, and drew a hand down his chin. He should shave, but did not want to risk picking up the razor. His heart was still trembling heavy in his chest, and Bucky wasn’t sure what he would do with something so sharp between his fingers.

            The shadows were long and blue behind them as they crossed the bridge. The pirate ship bobbed, top-heavy, in the surf. Neither of them regretted canceling their reservations. There was a live cannon on board. They didn’t want to go through that again.

            The evening sun was mellow and homely, tangerine streaked with lemon, and the lions glowed like living things. Bucky took several pictures, wondering if the memory of the imperious handler would come back to haunt him. He decided that it wouldn’t bother him if it did. His memories of being the Winter Soldier were alternately muddy and razor-sharp, filled with cold and stink and hunger. The hard grip of a hand on his arm, and the press of protein paste in his mouth, were about the best he could conjure of that time period. He wondered half-heartedly what had happened to the man, the stern pale eyes and outthrust jaw, and if his treatment of the Asset as a living, breathing being had shortened his own term of service. Bucky hoped it hadn’t.

            The bells were ringing in the campanile of the Basilica as they passed the green plaza, filled with milling tourists and locals. Bucky still felt a bit muddled, as though he didn’t move through the world as much as it simply moved around him. He walked along with his eyes on the tower, hands in his pockets, as Steve guided him. As long as Steve was there to pay attention, Bucky didn’t have to. He could hear conversation, laughter, traffic, the clop of hooves; he smelled restaurants and exhaust and horses and stone. A hundred assassins could be hidden in the dim shadows of the buildings and shops, and Bucky wouldn’t care. It didn’t matter. St. Augustine had already stood for four hundred fifty years. One more splash of blood on its ancient immovable cobblestones wouldn’t affect it one whit.

            Someone jostled him and apologized; Bucky only muttered, “No problem.” Then there was a high-pitched yip, and he dragged himself into the present. Steve had paused by the entrance of the cathedral, extracting himself from a long thin leash. A middle aged lady in a big floppy hat was apologizing.

            “Jazz gets so excited in crowds,” she said, helping Steve unwind his foot. “I’m so sorry.”

            Bucky looked down at the little dog with a jolt. It was the Yorkie he’d seen at Burger Buckets, bright-eyed, its little tail wagging like a silky pompom. “Hey,” he said, and the woman, smiling, turned to him. “Can I pet your dog?”

            “Of course,” she said cheerfully. “Jazz loves meeting people.”

            Bucky squatted on the cathedral steps and held out his flesh hand. The Yorkie sniffed it, licked it, and promptly climbed into Bucky’s lap. It couldn’t have weighed more than three pounds, bird-boned, tiny feet and big brown eyes and little flicking tongue cleaning Bucky’s stubble. He tipped his head back to keep the dog from French kissing him, laughing and scratching gently at the sleek fur. He caught Steve’s eye, glancing down at him from where he was politely conversing with the dog’s owner, and grinned. Steve’s smile broke like the sun peeping through parting clouds, and Bucky’s heart warmed. Stupid punk with his stupid handsome face and stupid concern for his stupid best friend, looking like someone had just saved his life. Bucky ducked his head and scooped the Yorkie into his arms, where it wriggled and licked and pawed at him. It was amazing how something so little held so much life.

            They took their leave of the woman in the floppy hat, thanking her for introducing her dog to them. Bucky watched them walk away, and the Yorkie turned his head to watch him, too.

            “You want a dog?” asked Steve.

            “No,” said Bucky, surprised. “I just – “ He couldn’t really put a word to it, how his hands closed around small, brittle ribcages, feeling heartbeats beneath his fingertips. He knew he could have crushed the Yorkie, or the little kids in the pool, but instead he had let the curve of his hands support them, small lungs and hearts and bright eyes cradled in flesh and metal. “No,” he said.

            Steve smiled sadly. “Okay,” he said.

            They walked back to the Lightner with a roll of quarters, and spent an hour strolling around the formal garden and feeding cat food to the koi. The sun started to set, the white walls of the museum turning into ripe warm colors, papaya and mandarin and mango. This reminded Bucky he was hungry, so they got triple-scoops at the ice cream shop across the street and ate them as they wandered back to the square.

            The bell tower was ringing again, calling Vespers to its parishioners. Steve paused by the steps, looking longingly through the big doors. Somewhere inside, an organ was playing, rumbling and somber. He glanced expectantly back at Bucky.

            “No way, pal,” said Bucky, throat tightening in panic. A church was no place for either the Winter Soldier, or what remained of that Irish kid from Brooklyn. “I’m not goin’ in there.” Steve’s face fell, and he added, “But you go ahead.”

            Steve looked startled. “What?”

            “Go in,” said Bucky, gesturing to the open doors with his head. “I’m gonna take pictures of the bay. The colors are good.”

            Steve gave him a skeptical look. “You sure?” he said.

            “Yeah,” said Bucky, a little offended. “What, you think I’m gonna run away or somethin’?”

            “No,” said Steve slowly. “But – you’re sure – “ Incense wafted through the doorway, and Steve peered hopefully through.

            “Yes, I’m sure,” said Bucky, exasperated. “Go in. Hurry up. You’ll miss the first rite, slowpoke.”

            Steve hesitated, torn, and Bucky rolled his eyes. “Go. Get your Irish Catholic schoolboy on.”

            “You’re Irish Catholic too, you know,” Steve said dryly, one foot already on the step.

            Bucky shrugged. “Nah. Just Irish. Which reminds me, let’s eat at the pub after Vespers.”

            “Fine,” said Steve, then smiled. “Thanks. Jerk.”

            “Go get holy, you punk,” Bucky called to his retreating back. Steve gave him a thumbs-up, and disappeared through the doorway with the rest of the crowd.

            Bucky ambled down the walkway to the bay and took a couple of pictures. The sunset washed rosy and soft across the sky, and he could see the lighthouse blinking at him. Boats sailed by, strangely quiet against the backdrop of the waterfront, laughter and music and the smells of food and seaweed and smoke. He took a shot of the Castillo, lit from within, shadowy and hunched against the shoreline, not menacing, but still steadfast. A shiver ran through him, and he turned away.

            He had meant to take more pictures, but was filled with a restless dissatisfaction. Steve had tried so hard to make Bucky’s birthday celebration perfect, but their past wouldn’t let them forget and move on. Like the monuments that surrounded him, pocked with age and violence, there was simply too much that clung to them, part of their psyches, damaged and worn.

            He slid his phone out of his pocket. He had a text from Bill Hayes.

            **BILL: hope you two old men are having a good time! Amelie and I miss you. The clubhouse isn’t the same without you guys there. No one knows how to make a margarita like you do!**

            Bucky smiled, the heaviness in his chest lifting a little.

            **BUCKY: Miss u guys 2! leaving tomorrow. BTW ask A what do I get Steve???**

He meandered up King Street, gallery windows brightly lit. His phone buzzed and he glanced down.

            **BILL: Amelie says whatever has caught his eye the most**

            Bucky looked up. The sculpture gallery was in front of him, glass gleaming with halogen and color. He frowned thoughtfully at the statuary.

            **BUCKY: tell her thanks, good idea, got it**

**BUCKY: see u**

**BILL: No problem, my friend. Amelie says she loves you. I should be jealous!**

**BUCKY: Not a chance pal, she thinks u hung the moon**

He took a shot of the sculpture, sent it to Bill and Amelie, and ducked inside the gallery to spend his month’s pension on Steve.

 

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            Steve was leaning against the wall of the cathedral, texting. The pale blue glow reflected off the planes of his face, and he was smiling, soft and fond. Bucky sauntered up, hands in his pockets, feeling unduly smug with his secret. Shipping costs were a bitch, but better that than have Steve discover it before they got home – or worse, have it break in Bucky’s kit. Considering the price tag, that would be disastrous.

            “Feelin’ all consecrated now?” he drawled, bumping Steve’s shoulder. He smelled musty and sweet, the odor of sanctity. Startled, Steve flushed, and Bucky grinned. “Sextin’ after evensong? Shame, shame. Shoulda taken care of that before confession.”

            “For the last time, I’m not sexting,” protested Steve, nettled. He slid the phone back in his pocket. “Get some good sunset shots?”

            “Yep,” said Bucky. “I’m hungry. I want oysters.”

            “You know they’re an aphrodisiac, right?” grinned Steve. He swung into step beside Bucky, bumping his shoulder in turn.

            Bucky huffed. “Don’t need any of that, pal. I’m fine without.”

            “Sure you are,” said Steve. He inhaled deeply and looked up at the darkling sky, composed and serene. He got like that after church; Bucky found it comforting. He liked it when Steve was at peace. It happened so rarely. He knew there was a Catholic church near them – Saint Someone Female – Martha, that was it. St. Martha’s. He should encourage Steve to join. It would do Steve some good to do some good, somewhere besides the other side of the duplex. It would also get him out of Bucky’s hair on Sunday mornings.

            They scored an outside table at Meehan’s and ordered a pitcher of porter and four dozen oysters. The bay was oily black and streaked with lights from the boats going by, and the sidewalk below choked with people. A lighted carriage rattled past, and Bucky’s brain flicked backwards, to the man used to bring them their milk – Mr. – Mr. – What was his name – Anderson, that was it; Mr. Anderson and his milk cart, and his old Belgian draft, Mortimer. Mortimer’s hooves were the size of dinner plates, dusted round the dry gray shoes with shaggy hair, enormous backside round and fly-speckled. Mr. Anderson called Mortimer “bomb-proof,” disdaining blinkers and crop; even backfiring Buicks didn’t bother him.

            “I guess Mr. Anderson’s dead now,” Bucky speculated, interrupting whatever Steve had been talking about, something about a gallery showing at the Ringling. He paused in surprise.

            “Mr. Anderson?” he said, frowning.

            “The milk man,” said Bucky. “That was his name, right? Anderson? And his horse’s name – “

            “Mortimer,” laughed Steve. “Yeah. He was a great guy. Let my mother have milk on a tab when times were lean.”

            “Times were always lean,” said Bucky, but he didn’t feel sad. The memory had been old and wrinkled and barely used, but it had been a good memory, a smiling and portly man in a blue uniform and cap, lightly smacking Mortimer on the haunches with the reins. “We ought to take Lila on a carriage tour. She loves horses.”

            Steve watched the lighted carriage, filled with tourists passing a bottle of wine back and forth, as it clopped slowly by. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She’d like that.”

            “We’re coming back, right?” blurted Bucky, suddenly worried.

            Steve raised his eyebrows. “Yes,” he said, then paused. “I mean – if you want.”

            “I want,” said Bucky. The waiter came back with their beer and filled their glasses. Someone upstairs was doing a set from Flogging Molly. The girls at the table next to them had ordered meat pies, and their rich and toothsome smell drifted over the cigarette smoke from the street. A boat tooted out on the bay, and the bridge began to flash red and white. Traffic stopped as the bascule raised to let the tall-masted ship pass. Bucky lifted his glass, and Steve gave a crooked smile and lifted his own.

            “Sláinte,” said Bucky.

            Steve touched his glass to Bucky’s, his eyes shining. “Sláinte,” he agreed.

 


	9. 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A/N: Thank you guys for sticking with us! Sheraiah and I have had a wonderful time sharing this fic with you, and your reactions have solidified for us why we write fanfic in the first place. You are all amazing.  
> In case you’re wondering, yes, there really is a strange yard art display at the intersection of FL SR 40 and FL SR 17. It is called the Barberville Yard Art Emporium. You can find it on Google Maps. But don’t just do that. Go there. Make a pilgrimage. Buy a pottery sugar skull. I promise you, it’s totally worth it.  
> Please visit Bucky’s Tumblr - https://fkdupsnowman128b.tumblr.com/ - to see the rest of his vacation pics!  
> \- Le Rouret and Sheraiah)

**9.**

 

           

            Bucky’s bed lurched to one side, his instincts sounding an alarm that something large was looming over him. Then the bed lurched to the other side, and a solid _thump_ was followed by the noise of drawers opening and closing.

            He opened one eye and squinted at the digital clock on the side table. Seven AM. Too early.

            His bed rocked again, first to the right, then the left. Another thump, and a zipping noise. Bucky pulled the cheap motel bedspread over his head and growled.

            When his bed heaved sideways, he shot one hand out to catch Steve by the ankle, but Steve was too fast. He hopped over Bucky’s body and landed on the opposite side. Bucky bounced up, cursing, and Steve jumped off the bed onto the floor, ignoring Bucky’s glare and emptying the dresser drawers.

            “You havin’ fun, punk?” he grated, rubbing his eyes with his flesh hand.

            “Just packing up,” said Steve calmly. “It’s not my fault your bed is between the dresser and my suitcase.”

            Bucky pulled the covers over his head again. His sheets smelled like cigarettes and soap. Steve hopped up onto the bed, stepped over him, and jumped down. The bed wobbled beneath his weight.

            “If you don’t get up soon,” Steve added, “I’m going to start singing.”

            “I’m up, I’m up,” snarled Bucky, throwing off the covers and sitting up. Steve was calmly sorting his toiletries in his little brown kit bag, sleek and slick-haired. He looked revoltingly perfect, even clad in faded denim shorts. “You already fucking _shaved?”_

            “Tick-tock,” said Steve cheerfully, zipping up the kit bag.

            Bucky muttered to himself all the way to the bathroom.

 

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            They had French toast and sausage at a little diner down the street. The coffee was only marginally better than the free stuff in the motel, but as they had already checked out, neither felt like a side-by-side comparison.

            They drove across the bridge to the Old City. The bay was dark and turbulent, boats and pelicans bobbing wildly on the white-capped surface. Live oaks and palm trees tossed limbs freely in the heavy air, and sparrows huddled in resentful flocks in the lees of the berms. They parked at Burger Buckets, and Bucky waited outside while Steve got their one-day Red Train passes. He didn’t want to risk scaring the waitress again.

            They caught the first train and clambered up behind the driver. Two families and an elderly couple boarded as well, and the driver turned around with a grin.

            “Welcome to the Red Train! I’m Smokey, and I’ll be your guide today,” he said. The accent was unmistakable.

            Steve and Bucky exchanged glances. “Where you from?” called Steve.

            “Bed-Stuy,” Smokey answered. "What about you guys?"

            "Brooklyn," Bucky and Steve chorused.

            "That's great!" said Smokey, beaming. "I'll be sure to treat you guys extra nice!"

            Bucky grinned at Steve. “Let’s do his whole tour."

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            They stayed on Smokey's train for his entire circuit. When they changed drivers at the main station, they gave him a walloping tip, and hopped off the train at St. George to find gifts for the folks at home.

            The touristy stores on St. George were just opening, displaying their wares on front steps slick with mist, bright placards announcing sales and two-for-ones. They picked up souvenir fridge magnets and key chains, and sampled fudge and hot sauce at the specialty shops. Bucky got tee shirts and stuffed animals for the Barton kids, and Steve put down a surprising amount of money on a pretty silver sea glass necklace in a local jewelry store. He flushed when Bucky raised his eyebrows at him, but Bucky decided not to comment.

            One of the cashiers recommended sangria in a nearby open-air bar, so of course they headed over, bellying up to the worn plank serving area and listening to the tattooed busker in the corner, crooning huskily along with his guitar. Bucky was inordinately excited when he heard a Dropkick Murpheys number, and tipped the busker generously on the way out.

            They wandered without speaking up Cadiz to Avenida Menendez, pausing one last time to admire the lions, and strolled past the Castillo. The bay was filled with whitecaps and listing boats, and the breeze was cool and damp. They paused as one in front of the kitschy Pirate Museum, then turned to the Castillo. Flags whipped and snapped from the poles, and the parking lot was already half full of tourists bundled in souvenir sweatshirts and hats.

            Bucky scowled across A1A at the massive fort, cannon-pocked coquina walls dull and dun in the clouded light. The air smelled of exhaust and fish, and he could feel Steve beside him, kind and constant, a monument to well-meaning and pig-headed permanence. Berate, ignore, take for granted, find refuge; neither he nor the Castillo were going anywhere. He supposed a parallel could be made, after all.

            "Ready to go home?" asked Steve.

            Bucky glanced over at him. His normally neat hair was ruffled up and unruly, and he still looked a little sad around the eyes – hangover, Bucky guessed, from the shit-show the day before yesterday. He didn't blame Steve. He was feeling a little fragile still, echoes of his breakdown shuddering faintly in the back of his brain, easy enough to ignore, but dangerous if not dealt with – wavering mutters, dark and fuzzy, lying in wait like a counter-intelligence agent in the shadows. You knew it was there, somewhere, ready to spring and fuck up the mission, but even if you stopped and held your breath, you couldn't hear it – just a presence filled with the potential for unspeakable violence.

            Bucky decided to ignore it anyway. It wasn't like he could stop it springing out at him. As long as he knew it was there, he and Steve could deal with it when it manifested. If he kept himself wound up waiting for the inevitable attack, he really _would_ lose his mind.

            "Ready," he said.

            Steve turned to go; Bucky took one last look at Matanzas and spied the pirate galleon, careening wildly in the surf. So many things on Steve’s color-coded schedule that they didn't get to do – the Ripleys museum, the pirate cruise, Fort Matanzas, Villa Zorayda, the church tours …

            "Next time," he said aloud.

            "What?" Steve looked back over his shoulder at him, eyebrows pinched.

            Bucky swallowed. “I said,” he grated, “I had a nice time.” He looked down at his boot, scuffing in the gravel. “Thanks,” he mumbled.

            Steve let his breath out in a whoosh. “Oh,” he said, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “Good. I, uh. I’m glad.” He gave a sheepish smile. “I did, too.”

            “Within reason,” Bucky amended, not meeting his eye.

            “Yeah,” agreed Steve, his voice a little hushed.

            They were silent a moment, staring out at the bay. Bucky squirmed. “Hey,” he said. "I'm hungry. Can we eat at that restaurant we saw across the street from the popsicle place? The sign out front said they had key lime pie."

            "Of course you’re hungry," groaned Steve, but his blue eyes were warm and soft.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            The Florida Cracker Cafe was crowded enough that they had to wait for a table. They took their beers outside, watching the tourists pass by. A gaggle of young girls, clad in short-shorts and baggy sweatshirts, ogled them in the doorway of the popsicle store, giggling behind their hands and waving. Bucky and Steve waved and smiled back. Bucky noticed Steve take out his phone afterwards and send a quick text; when it pinged in his pocket a few seconds later, Steve pulled it out, glanced at it, and blushed a little before slipping it back into his pocket. Bucky pretended not to notice.

            After they had ordered their fried gator and coconut shrimp, Steve pushed his chair back. “Gonna hit the head,” he said.

            “Sure thing.” Bucky dropped his napkin and bent to pick it up, his shoulder brushing Steve’s hip so that he couldn’t feel nimble metal fingers. Bucky tucked the phone in his palm and hid it in his lap until the men’s room door closed, then he tapped in Steve’s security code – honestly, who needed a security code when you lived with a former assassin? – and opened his messages. He frowned thoughtfully at the list marked “Sofia,” memorized the number, and softly dropped the phone under the table by his feet.

            He took out his phone and tapped the number into his messages.

            **BUCKY: hi its bucky steves friend**

**BUCKY: I stole his phone to get ur #**

He waited. The wavy line of dots appeared, showing she was responding. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, glancing towards the restrooms.

            **SOFIA: Well, nice to meet you finally! Steve has told me so much about you. So did you enjoy your trip to St. Augustine? It’s one of my favorite historic spots to visit.**

Bucky’s heart uncoiled a little. So Steve hadn’t mentioned his breakdown. Thank god.

            **BUCKY: we did tks! Just real quick while steves in the john, his birthday is july 4, get him art 4 his walls pls?**

**BUCKY: dont know much about art but he needs some k?**

**SOFIA: July 4? That’s ironic! Certainly, I was wondering what sorts of things he might enjoy as gifts. He’s so secretive and private sometimes, and I know he doesn’t like it if people pry. Thank you for the tip!**

**BUCKY: np tks got 2 go b4 hes done peeing talk 2 u soon I hope**

**SOFIA: Definitely! Looking forward to it. Nice to meet you, Bucky!**

**BUCKY: cya**

            Bucky was just in time. He watched Steve move towards their table out of the corner of his eye and sent a quick text to Bill Hayes.

            **BUCKY: on our way home missed u guys**

“We gonna order more beer?” asked Steve, sitting back down.

            “Sun’s over the yardarm,” said Bucky, putting his phone on the table. He fiddled with his napkin while Steve patted his pockets, frowning. “You forget your dick in the bathroom?”

            “Funny,” grunted Steve. “I think I dropped my phone.”

            Bucky gave an exaggerated sigh. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” he complained. He made a show of helping Steve look, letting Steve find the phone by his feet.

            “You’re lucky I didn’t step on it,” Bucky scolded. “Honestly, kids these days.”

            “You’re starting to sound like Howie,” grinned Steve.

            “Shut up,” Bucky rejoined without heat. He liked Howie. “Here comes our gator. Let’s just order a pitcher, yeah? Be cheaper that way.”

            “Whatever you want, Howie Junior,” laughed Steve.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            The drive out of St. Augustine was marked by a strange admiration for each other’s music. Bucky listened carefully to Steve’s offering of modern jazz, trying to pick out the difference between the electric and upright bass; Steve was delighted when Bucky finally announced, with triumph, that he could tell them apart. Steve reciprocated by puzzling through the blended melodies of two punk guitarists punching out concurrent solos, surprised by the artistry behind the frenetic music. They alternated tracks without incident until they approached the intersection of 40 and 17, where they had seen the shitty Iron Man statue.

            “Stevie, _pleeeeassee_ can we stop?” begged Bucky. He was using his puppy dog eyes, dammit. Steve hated when he did that.

            There was a gigantic pink metal rooster staring Steve down. He glanced at the car clock. They were making good time. “Fine,” he said. “On one condition.”

            “Anything,” said Bucky eagerly, then paused and asked, frowning, “What?”

            “Take a picture of the shitty Iron Man?”

            Bucky hadn’t taken out his camera since the day before his breakdown in the Spanish Military Hospital. Steve was afraid he’d lost his interest in it.

            “I was gonna, punk,” said Bucky scornfully. “I mean, come on. How could I come here and _not_ take a picture of the shitty Iron Man?” He swept his metal arm toward the menagerie of pottery, iron statuary, and concrete. “Just look at this place! Amelie would love this.”

            Steve let out a secret sigh of relief. “Good,” he grunted.

            Bucky was out of the car before Steve even put it in park, and thumped impatiently on the trunk lid until Steve popped it. Steve watched him dig the camera out of the mound of dirty clothes in his duffel with a smile. He almost felt normal. Almost. He kind of hoped Bucky did, too, and wasn’t just pretending. Bucky could fool him so easily.

            The grounds were more extensive – and bizarre – than they had appeared from the street. It seemed as though he discovered some abrasive new bit of twisted décor every time he took a step: Furniture shaped like body parts; animals wearing human clothing; topless mermaids disguised as mail boxes; earthenware _Día de Muertos_ animal skeletons; a hand-carved cedar dining room set that looked like an exact replica of King Arthur’s Round Table. He snapped a few shots with his phone and sent them to blonde-and-green-eyes, with several emojis expressing shock and disbelief. She responded a few seconds later with a series of smiley faces and a big poop.

            He had been gazing in fascinated disgust at the dusty, ancient taxidermy for fifteen minutes before he realized he had lost track of Bucky entirely.

            His throat tightened in panic. _Not again,_ he thought, berating himself for being distracted. Bucky wasn’t okay, no matter how much he tried to prove it to Steve, and as evidenced by the cold surge of alarm in Steve’s chest, Steve wasn’t that okay, either. He clutched the jar of local tupelo honey he’d picked up near the front tightly and looked around, trying not to resemble a child who’d lost his mother in the grocery store.

            He scanned past the weird lawn furniture, the enormous stack of gazing balls, the mish-mash of statuary and pottery, desperate to catch a glimpse of Bucky’s untidy dark head, or the flash of his metal arm. He was just fingering the phone in his pocket, ready to send a text to Maria Hill to track Bucky’s electronics, when he heard the bray of a familiar laugh from the covered register area.

            Weak with relief, he took a deep breath, held it for a count of five, and let it out, just like Laura Barton had taught him. Again, in, and out, and in, and out until his heartbeat slowed. He plastered a smile on his face and ducked beneath the hanging pots and succulents to see Bucky filling out paperwork at the counter while an elderly man in shorts and plastic flip-flops grinned down at him.

            “What are you doing?” asked Steve, trying to sound casual and not like he’d spent five minutes in a state of blind terror.

            “I’m havin’ my new bench shipped,” Bucky grinned.

            “Bench?” Steve raised his eyebrows.

            “Yeah,” said Bucky. “Looks like two butts. Gonna put it in the back yard.”

            Steve’s relief was doubled by the thought that he wouldn’t have to field any angry letters from the Homeowner’s Association. “Thank god,” said Steve. “Wait – is it that one that looks like the lower halves of two people kneeling on the ground? The one wearing cowboy boots?”

            “Yeah, that one,” said Bucky.

            Steve shook his head. “Of all the things to buy – “

            “The six-foot pink cock wouldn’t fit in my living room,” said Bucky.

            “Right.” Steve glanced at the shelf beside him. There was a display of locally produced preserves, orange marmalade, and mango jelly. He picked up a couple. “We should get Amelie a gazing ball.”

            “And something for Ellie and Sabra, too,” Bucky agreed. He folded up his shipping manifest and stuffed it in his pocket. “We’ll be right back,” he said to the man with the flip-flops. The man grinned and winked.

            As they loaded Steve’s back seat with their purchases – a large bag filled with honey and preserves, a gazing ball with a stand, a silver statue of St. Francis, and a beautifully painted plant pot from Mexico – Steve glanced over at the shitty Iron Man statue. “Did you get a picture?” he asked.

            “Of course,” said Bucky, offended. “Do I look crazy?”

            “A little.” He felt lighter somehow, his car full of strange souvenirs, Bucky giving him the finger over the roof, his arms, one flesh, one metal, resting lightly on the gleaming silver finish. So they weren’t okay. That was fine. They didn’t have to be, as long as he could see this every day, his broken and tortured best friend smiling, relaxed, taking pictures of horrible statuary and sharing pitchers of beer and going on road trips. A year and a half ago, they could never have done this. Progress, he supposed, even though the march forward was beset with trenches and land mines like panic attack triggers and angry outbursts. What did he expect, after all? If his past had taught him anything, it was that the steps forward were halting and tenuous, feet easing through rough, trap-riddled terrain. The time frame mattered less than the will to persist.

            Bucky was smiling at him, chin resting on his folded arms. The fitful Florida sun gleamed on his metal arm, the breeze stirring dark hair. They had both come so far. Steve’s heart swelled and stammered, irrationally giddy. Let the Nazis and Hydra and subversive political terrorists thrash and rage; Steve Rogers had hung up his shield and decided to dig in on dryer, more domestic earth. He and Bucky would outlive them all.

            “Ready to get home?” he asked, feeling as though he could launch his practical silver sedan into the sky and fly it to Sarasota.

            “You bet,” said Bucky eagerly. “Hey, Ellie’s invited us over for barbecue. Everyone’ll be there.” He snapped his fingers, eyes bright. “We should bring that key lime wine they like.”

            Steve had tasted Ellie’s rubbed pork shoulder before, and if Sabra brought her German potato salad too … He licked his lips.

            “I’ll try not to get caught for speeding,” he promised, getting in, and Bucky laughed and joined him.

 

**XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

 

            New York City in April was a mixed bag. It was either cold and wet, or clemently sunny.

            Today was one of the cold and wet varieties, and Pepper Potts was feeling distinctly put out.

            Her Prada shoes had gotten wet when she’d stepped out of the limo. The humidity was frizzing her hair. Her lovely new gray Louis Vuitton suit was smudged by accidentally rubbing up against one of the railings on her way up the stairs. The window washers had to cancel – again – and the housekeeping staff was starting to complain about the slick tarazzo. And, to top it all off, was that.

            Thing.

            Tony was bouncing a little on his toes, his eyes crinkling at the edges. His hands, shoved deep into the pockets of his suit pants, were restless. His hair was mussed from the rain and he had a bruise across his cheekbone, sustained from his last mission for Ross, but he was grinning.

            Dammit.  He couldn’t actually _like_ that thing.

            The packaging had been stripped away and it stood, grotesque and gleaming dully, in the front lobby of Stark Tower. It glowered down at her. Pepper glowered back.

            “You know,” said Tony brightly, “I think it needs a pedestal. Right?” He turned to her, wide eyed and excited. “A big one. Marble. With a plaque. Tell me I can have a pedestal with a plaque, Pepper.”

            “No,” said Pepper, narrowing her eyes.

            “A _big_ plaque,” said Tony, waving his arms. “With the delivery message proclaimed proudly upon it. A bronze plaque. Engraved, even.”

            “Tony,” said Pepper. “No.”

            “Why not?” He raised his eyebrows at her. One of them had been cut through, and was held together with stitches. Blood still seeped through the bandage, but Tony didn’t seem to notice. “It needs a pedestal, so people can see it through the plate glass from the street. And visitors will need a plaque to read when they’re waiting to be ushered up into the CEO’s illustrious presence.”

            Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose. Her head was starting to hurt. Must be the barometric pressure. “Tony – “

            “Just think!” Tony crowed, throwing his arms wide and stepping up to the monstrosity. “The teeming masses will enter! They will gape! They will gawp, even! What does gawp mean?” he asked, turning back to her. “Is it a good word? I don’t care. It sounds like a good word. I declare it to be a real word. Happy, call Miriam-Webster. They will gawp! And when they approach, while gawping, this monument to bravery and patriotism, upon the shining bronze plaque, they will gawpingly read:” He pulled out the shipping manifest, upon which was scrawled a note in graceful script:  “Here, thought u would like this, B Barnes.” Tony grinned at Pepper. “Think of the historic significance! A national treasure! A war hero! A Howling Commando! A gift, as it were, from the glorious past, bestowed upon the present’s champion!”

            “Tony,” said Pepper severely. “That is _not_ staying here.”

            “Of course it is,” said Tony easily, tucking the shipping manifest into his jacket pocket. He turned, straightened his tie, and strode toward the elevator banks. “A monument, Pepper!” he called back to her. “The past paying homage to the present! I like it. Happy, where’s my phone? I need to call Rhodey. He will _be. So_. _Jealous_!”

            Pepper shook her head. She could hear Tony’s voice, fading with distance, across the lobby. The delivery men had finished setting up the statue and stood, grinning, waiting, no doubt for a tip.

            Pepper sighed.

            She might as well resign herself. Stark Tower was now home to the shittiest Iron Man the world had ever seen.

            “Thanks a lot, Sergeant Barnes,” she grumbled, and clicked angrily away to let Happy deal with it.

 

 


End file.
